Trump and the Attack of the Invisible Anarchists
Lurid fantasies about urban hellscapes are all he has left.
By Paul Krugman
On Thursday morning I walked across much of Manhattan and back again. (Why are all the doctors’ offices on the East Side?) It was a beautiful day, and the city looked cheerful: Shops were open, people were drinking coffee in the sidewalk seating areas that have proliferated during the pandemic, Central Park was full of joggers and cyclists.
But I must have been imagining all that, because Donald Trump assures me that New York is beset by “anarchy, violence and destruction.”
With only two months left in the presidential campaign, Trump has evidently decided that he can neither run on his own record nor effectively attack Joe Biden. Instead, he’s running against anarchists who, he insists, secretly rule the Democratic Party and are laying waste to America’s cities.
There’s not much to be said about Trump’s claims that people “in the dark shadows” control Biden and that mysterious people dressed in black are menacing Republicans, except that not long ago it would have been inconceivable for any major-party politician to engage in this kind of conspiracy theorizing.
There’s a bit more to be said about his claims of rampant violence and destruction in “anarchic jurisdictions” — namely, that these claims bear little resemblance to the mostly peaceful reality.
But invisible anarchists are all Trump has left. To see why, let’s talk about the real issues: the pandemic and the economy.
A few months ago the Trump campaign clearly hoped that it could put the coronavirus behind it. But the virus declined to cooperate.
It’s not just the fact that premature reopening led to a huge second wave of infections and deaths. Equally important, from a political point of view, has been Covid-19’s geographical spread.
Early in the pandemic it was possible to portray Covid-19 as a big-city, blue-state problem; voters in rural areas and red states found it easier to dismiss the threat in part because they were relatively unlikely to know people who had gotten sick. But the second surge of infections and deaths was concentrated in the Sunbelt.
And while the Sunbelt surge appears to be slowly subsiding now that state and local governments have done what Trump didn’t want them to do — close bars, ban large gatherings and require masks — there now appears to be a surge in the Midwest.
What this means is that by Election Day almost everyone in America will know someone who caught the virus, and will also know that Trump’s repeated promises that it was going away were false.
When it comes to the economy, all indications are that the rapid snapback of May and June has leveled off, with unemployment still very high. Friday’s employment report is likely to show an economy still adding jobs, but nothing like the “super V” recovery Trump is still claiming. And there will be only one more labor market report before the election.
Furthermore, the politics of the economy depend less on what official numbers say than on how people are feeling. Consumer confidence remains low. Assessments by businesses surveyed by the Federal Reserve range from unenthusiastic to glum. And there just isn’t enough time for this to change much: Trump isn’t going to be able to ride an economic boom into the election.
So he needs to run against those invisible anarchists.
Now, there has been some looting, property damage and violence associated with Black Lives Matter demonstrations. But the property damage has been minor compared with urban riots of the past — no, Portland is not “ablaze all the time” — and much of the violence is coming not from the left but from right-wing extremists.
It’s also true that there has been a recent rise in homicides, and nobody is sure why. But murders were very low last year, and even if the rate so far this year continues, New York City will have substantially fewer homicides in 2020 than it did when Rudy Giuliani was mayor.
In short, there isn’t a wave of anarchy and violence other than that unleashed by Trump himself. But can voters be swayed by the president’s lurid fantasies?
Actually, they might. For whatever reason, there’s a long history of disconnect between the realities of crime and public perceptions. As Pew has pointed out, between 1993 and 2018 violent crime in America plunged; murders in New York fell more than 80 percent. Yet over that period Americans consistently told pollsters that crime was rising.
And with travel and tourism way down, so that people can’t see the reality of other places with their own eyes, it may be especially easy for Trump to pretend that our big cities have turned into dystopian hellscapes.
What’s less clear is whether this lie will help Trump, even if people believe it. “America has gone to hell on my watch, so you must re-elect me” isn’t the greatest campaign pitch I can think of.
And polling suggests that fear is not, in fact, the president’s friend. For example, by a large margin respondents to a new Quinnipiac poll declared that having Trump as president makes them feel less safe. Reactions to Biden were much more favorable.
Still, expect Trump to keep ranting about those invisible anarchists. They’re all he has left.
Seeing the Last Acceptable Prejudice Clearly: The More Educated Screwed the Less-Educated
By DEAN BAKER
I was happy to see Michael Sandel’s piece * in the New York Times arguing that it is still acceptable to have negative views of less-educated people because of their lack of education. Sandel makes the lonely argument that, rather than focusing on increasing opportunities for people to become more educated:
“We should focus less on arming people for a meritocratic race and more on making life better for those who lack a diploma but who make important contributions to our society — through the work they do, the families they raise and the communities they serve. This requires renewing the dignity of work and putting it at the center of our politics.”
This argument is very well-taken. It should also be warmly embraced by anyone concerned about racial inequality, because even if our most ambitious plans for improving the plights of minority children prove successful, people of color will still disproportionately hold lower paying jobs for decades into the future.
But there is one point where I have to take serious issue with Sandel. He refers to “A global economy that outsources jobs to low-wage countries has somehow come upon us and is here to stay.” While this is presented as a mainstream viewpoint, Sandel also seems to accept that this is something that happened, rather than something we did.
As I argued in Rigged [it’s free ** ] and elsewhere, it was not the natural forces of globalization and technology that made the less-educated big losers, it was how we structured these forces. We made sure that our steel workers and auto workers had to compete against low paid workers in the developing world, with the predictable result. We largely protected our doctors and dentists from the same competition. We made our patent and copyright monopolies longer and stronger to ensure that a disproportionate share of the gains from technology went to people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, rather than the average high school grad.
In short, Sandel is exactly right, but his case is even stronger than he presents here. Not only do the elites have contempt for the less-educated, but they actively designed policies to screw them. And, they won’t tell you that in the New York Times.
The Old Japan’s Debt Burden is Reaching Its Limits Story
By Dean Baker
That’s a theme we have been hearing for decades. Japan is a huge embarrassment for the deficit hawks. It has a debt to GDP ratio of close to 250 percent, more than twice as high as in the United States, yet it has none of the problems that the deficit hawks tell us will come from high debt.
It currently pays 0.05 percent interest on its long-term bonds. Much of its debt carries a negative interest rate so that its debt burden is currently near zero. This means that in spite of its high debt, the country neither has interest rates nor faces a crushing debt burden.
It also does not have an inflation problem. Inflation over the last year has been 0.5 percent. The country has actually been struggling to raise its inflation rate.
Nonetheless, the New York Times quotes an expert telling us * that Japan cannot stay on its current course:
“ ‘When it comes to work style change and faster introduction of digitalization, the shock that came from corona probably made a bigger impact’ than Mr. Abe’s policies, said Takuji Okubo, the North Asia director of the Economist Corporate Network.
“With the economy in crisis, Japan’s next leader ‘needs to move in a different direction,’ he said. ‘The next prime minister will not be able to use monetary policy that much. The room for further expansion, for further easing, is very limited.’ ”
While Japan’s economy clearly has problems, like all economies, it is not clear what limits it presently faces. Its growth in per capita GDP and labor productivity is not very different ** than in the United States.
When people want to hold up Japan as a country that is suffering because of high debt, it is mostly just hand waving. There is little evidence to support this view.
Trump’s ‘America First’ Vaccine Agenda May Leave Us Last
By DEAN BAKER
There is a very real possibility that China will have an effective vaccine against the coronavirus before the United States. China had four of the first eight vaccines to go into the final phase of clinical testing, so it’s not far-fetched to think that they will end up with the first one to prove safe and effective.
If the U.S. is even one month behind in getting a vaccine approved and distributed, at our current rate of 40,000 infections daily, and more than 1,000 deaths, a one-month delay would mean another 1.2 million infections and 30,000 deaths. If the delay is as long as six months, we would be looking at more than seven million additional infections and 180,000 deaths. In short, this is a really big deal.
China’s relative standing in the world would advance enormously if it is the country sharing a lifesaving vaccine with the rest of the world. It would also put either a second-term Trump or first-term Biden administration in an awkward position, as it tried to negotiate with China for access to a vaccine.
But stepping back from these geopolitical concerns, it is worth asking why we are in this situation in the first place. Specifically, why are we in a situation where a company or country can “own” a vaccine, and can set the terms under which people can gain access?
The issue here is that the Trump administration chose to go the route of privatizing vaccine research, with companies getting patent monopolies, rather than opting for a worldwide collective process to produce effective vaccines as quickly as possible for all of mankind. This alternative would have been possible, if the United States was prepared to take the lead in pushing it.
Contrary to common belief in policy circles, patent monopolies are not given to us by God, they are an explicit government policy to provide incentives for research and innovation. Arguably, they are a very poor tool for financing prescription drug research. Not only do they make drugs expensive when they would otherwise be cheap, they also provide perverse incentives to manufacturers.
Since the patent allows drug companies to sell for far more than the free-market price, they have enormous incentive to lie about the safety and effectiveness of their drugs. This is a standard practice that can have enormous consequences for public health. The most dramatic recent example is the opioid crisis, where several major companies have now paid billions of dollars to settle claims that they deliberately concealed evidence about the addictiveness of their drugs.
But the pandemic created an extraordinary opportunity for cooperative open-source research, breaking the patent monopoly paradigm. On this path, all results would be shared as quickly as practical, and all patents would be placed in the public domain so that anyone can use them. This massive international effort would have been a reasonable response to a worldwide crisis.
In the early days of the pandemic, as scientists struggled to understand the coronavirus, there was a large degree of international cooperation. This was noted in a May editorial in Nature magazine, which commented on the extraordinarily rapid progress in understanding the key features of the virus.
Instead of trying to build on this cooperation, the Trump administration decided to go it alone with Operation Warp Speed. This was quite explicitly a program designed to get vaccines and treatments for people in the United States, with the rest of the world coming second, at best. Other countries largely went the same path, as they both pursued their own vaccines and sought to lock in manufacturing capacity to meet the needs of their own citizens, leaving poorer countries out in the cold.
The Trump administration took its go-it-alone strategy one step further, pulling the United States out of the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access. While this grouping of 170 countries is primarily designed to ensure access to developing countries, it would also allow sharing among wealthy countries. Trump’s decision could make it harder for people in the United States to get access to vaccines developed by other countries.
The Trump administration not only went the nationalist route, it also adopted a path that seemed designed more to maximize corporate profits than to provide early and cheap vaccine access. While it gave subsidies to a number of companies, in the case of Moderna, generally considered the leading U.S. vaccine contender, it essentially paid for its research costs up front. It provided Moderna with $483 million for its preclinical research and Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. It then gave Moderna another $472 million to cover the cost of its Phase 3 clinical trial.
Incredibly, after picking up the research tab, the Trump administration also gave Moderna a patent monopoly on its vaccine, meaning that the company can dictate what price it wants to charge us. As a result, we may be waiting months longer than necessary, as China passes us by, to get access to an expensive vaccine where we paid for all the research in advance.
Unfortunately, the blame for this situation cannot be laid entirely at Donald Trump’s doorstep. Although some of the usual suspects among the Democrats have insisted that a vaccine largely funded with public dollars should be sold at a reasonable price, no major figure in the party objected to the path of patent monopolies and vaccine nationalism.
Had we decided to go the open-source route, instead of having U.S., German, Russian, and Chinese scientists competing against each other, they would be collaborating, quickly learning from the others’ successes and failures. Going this route would not preclude drug manufacturers from making a profit. They would be paid for doing research, just as was the case with Moderna. The difference is that they would not also be given a patent monopoly.
Since there would be no ownership of the science, as soon as a vaccine appeared promising, manufacturers anywhere in the world could begin to prepare facilities for mass production. They would not need anyone’s approval, apart from being able to certify that they met quality standards. This would make vaccines both widely available and cheap.
It’s understandable that Republicans would not want to go this route in developing a vaccine or treatments for the pandemic. It could set a highly visible bad example, showing the public that there are better mechanisms than patent monopolies for financing the development of new drugs. However, it is disappointing that Democrats seem to share the same concern.
In spite of its intentions, the Trump administration may still end up setting an example, for anyone who cares to use it. While the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the last decade on highly respected biomedical research, the bulk of agency funding went to more basic research. The conventional view is that if NIH, or another government agency, spent money on actually developing drugs and going through clinical trials, it would be the same thing as throwing the money away.
If the funding for Moderna, and other recipients of Operation Warp Speed grants, leads to successful vaccines and treatments, it will show that government funding of later-stage research and trials can be effective. This should allow for a serious debate as to whether we are better off having taxpayers pick up the full tab for drug development, thereafter having new drugs available as cheap generics, or whether we should stick with patent monopoly financing. That would be an interesting debate, if we could ever have it.
Four Chinese COVID-19 vaccines undergoing phase-3 clinical trials
Four Chinese COVID-19 vaccine candidates have started international phase-3 clinical trials, according to the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19.
Some of the phase-3 trials are expected to complete the first round of vaccinations in early September, with preliminary data expected as early as November….
CanSino COVID-19 candidate vaccine enters Phase III trial
China has granted a patent to a COVID-19 vaccine co-developed by CanSino Biologics and a team led by infectious disease expert Chen Wei. It is a recombinant adenovirus vaccine named Ad5-nCoV.
The vaccine has completed its Phase II clinical trial and is now entering Phase III. So, what are the advantages of this vaccine candidate over other types? Will the Phase III trial prove the vaccine effective? And how do things stand in the wider global race to find a COVID-19 vaccine?
According to Zheng Zhongwei, head of China’s coronavirus vaccine development task force, China has officially authorized the emergency use of COVID-19 vaccines. Yu Xuefeng, chairman and CEO of CanSino Biologics, confirmed to CGTN Dialogue’s Zou Yue, that their COVID-19 vaccine had already been used by some Chinese peacekeepers.
“At the end of June, we were approved by the Chinese military regulatory bodies that … they granted us permission to … use (our vaccine) for the military under the emergency need,” Yu responded.
Additionally, Yu gave details about the existing COVID-19 vaccines. He said there are five types of COVID-19 vaccines, including inactivated vaccines, live attenuated influenza vaccine, adenoviral vector-based vaccines, and DNA and mRNA vaccines. He emphasized that mRNA is a new technology to develop vaccines to prevent and treat disease, showing great promise for the future….
Having apparently approached a containment of the coronavirus, the Israeli government incautiously opened schools and businesses, and the result has been a persistent community infection spread contributing to what are now 128,768 cases in the small country as compared to 85,112 through all of mainland China.
Beyond the mistake of the incautious opening, the need is to look to what is obviously an unanticipated institutional healthcare system weakness in Israel.
There were 90,594 new coronavirus cases in India today. Cases had climbed above 80,000 daily these last few weeks. The distressing point that should be made is just how undeveloped healthcare infrastructure is in India, for all the growth these last couple of decades. Indian infrastructure in general is poorly developed, as Amartya Sen pointed to in the wake of being awarded a Nobel Prize in economics, but Sen was paid little attention by development economists. Now, we find India in any day recording about as many coronavirus cases as China has recorded in all:
As some in the US are advocating for a relaxation of social distancing, they seem to forget about Covid being contagious with an R-naught of 2 and maybe as high as to 5 which is still far less than the measles at 12 and close to that of small pox at the higher end of Covid’s range. Regardless of the survival rate, would you be out and about socially if this were a small pox pandemic? I say this only because too many are ignoring the consequences other than death. With the start of going back to college, we are seeing an explosion of new cases amongst the young who believe this will pass quickly and not result in death. True, they may not die; they may morph into one of those patients who have serious illness of which there are 15.000 now (Worldometer) or perhaps they survive and for months have recovery issues (reddit). I would hope some here might read the comments of Covid survivors at the Coronavirus Survivors. For many who contract Covid, they do not just wake up the next day cured.
Coronavirus Crisis Shatters India’s Big Dreams
The country’s ambitions to become a global power, lift its poor and update its military have been set back by a sharp economic plunge, soaring infections and a widening sense of malaise.
By Jeffrey Gettleman
Having apparently approached a containment of the coronavirus, the Israeli government incautiously opened schools and businesses, and the result has been a persistent community infection spread contributing to what are now 130,157 cases in the small country as compared to 85,122 through all of mainland China.
Beyond the mistake of the incautious opening, the need is to look to what is obviously an unanticipated institutional healthcare system weakness in Israel. Determining how the Israeli healthcare system can be strengthened, can serve as a model.
At 18 and 19 years of age, so many of us did what we had to do in the sixties going into the seventies by being drafted, enlisting, going to Canada, etc. This is not different and far less threatening than being one of the 58,000 who perished. They have been lied to as many of us were lied too. This is about growing up and making a small sacrifice.
A New Front in America’s Pandemic: College Towns
The coronavirus is spiking around campuses from Texas to Iowa to North Carolina as students return.
By Sarah Watson, Shawn Hubler, Danielle Ivory and Robert Gebeloff
There has been no coronavirus death on the Chinese mainland since May 17. There has been no community or domestic coronavirus case for 22 days. Since June there have been only 2 limited community clusters of infections, in Beijing and Urumqi in Xinjiang, both of which were contained with mass testing, contact tracing and quarantine, and both outbreaks ended in a few weeks. Imported coronavirus cases are caught at entry points with required testing and immediate quarantine. Asymptomatic cases are all quarantined.
Having apparently approached a containment of the coronavirus, the Israeli government incautiously opened schools and businesses, and the result has been a persistent community infection spread contributing to what are now 133,183 cases in the small country as compared to 85,134 through all of mainland China.
Beyond the mistake of the incautious opening, the need is to look to what is obviously an unanticipated institutional healthcare system weakness in Israel. Determining how the Israeli healthcare system can be strengthened, can serve as a model.
While the Dominican Republic has been the fastest growing country in Gross Domestic Product per capita in the Western Hemisphere since 1971, Cuba has been continually sanctioned economically by the United States through these years. However, Cuba has a far superior healthcare system as reflected now in the coronavirus experience of the countries and for years past in a range of critical healthcare experiences from infant mortality to life expectancy.
Today, even in the midst of the international epidemic, the United States added to the economic sanctions on Cuba.
Chinese-made vaccine able to fight all mutations: developer
By Leng Shumei
________________________________
Will be ready for mass vaccination at low price
________________________________
Chinese military infectious disease expert Chen Wei said a COVID-19 vaccine her team produced can be effective against all existing mutations of the novel coronavirus, noting that they are preparing for mass vaccination at a low price whenever phase three clinical trial results come out….
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/opinion/trump-democrats-cities.html
September 3, 2020
Trump and the Attack of the Invisible Anarchists
Lurid fantasies about urban hellscapes are all he has left.
By Paul Krugman
On Thursday morning I walked across much of Manhattan and back again. (Why are all the doctors’ offices on the East Side?) It was a beautiful day, and the city looked cheerful: Shops were open, people were drinking coffee in the sidewalk seating areas that have proliferated during the pandemic, Central Park was full of joggers and cyclists.
But I must have been imagining all that, because Donald Trump assures me that New York is beset by “anarchy, violence and destruction.”
With only two months left in the presidential campaign, Trump has evidently decided that he can neither run on his own record nor effectively attack Joe Biden. Instead, he’s running against anarchists who, he insists, secretly rule the Democratic Party and are laying waste to America’s cities.
There’s not much to be said about Trump’s claims that people “in the dark shadows” control Biden and that mysterious people dressed in black are menacing Republicans, except that not long ago it would have been inconceivable for any major-party politician to engage in this kind of conspiracy theorizing.
There’s a bit more to be said about his claims of rampant violence and destruction in “anarchic jurisdictions” — namely, that these claims bear little resemblance to the mostly peaceful reality.
But invisible anarchists are all Trump has left. To see why, let’s talk about the real issues: the pandemic and the economy.
A few months ago the Trump campaign clearly hoped that it could put the coronavirus behind it. But the virus declined to cooperate.
It’s not just the fact that premature reopening led to a huge second wave of infections and deaths. Equally important, from a political point of view, has been Covid-19’s geographical spread.
Early in the pandemic it was possible to portray Covid-19 as a big-city, blue-state problem; voters in rural areas and red states found it easier to dismiss the threat in part because they were relatively unlikely to know people who had gotten sick. But the second surge of infections and deaths was concentrated in the Sunbelt.
And while the Sunbelt surge appears to be slowly subsiding now that state and local governments have done what Trump didn’t want them to do — close bars, ban large gatherings and require masks — there now appears to be a surge in the Midwest.
What this means is that by Election Day almost everyone in America will know someone who caught the virus, and will also know that Trump’s repeated promises that it was going away were false.
When it comes to the economy, all indications are that the rapid snapback of May and June has leveled off, with unemployment still very high. Friday’s employment report is likely to show an economy still adding jobs, but nothing like the “super V” recovery Trump is still claiming. And there will be only one more labor market report before the election.
Furthermore, the politics of the economy depend less on what official numbers say than on how people are feeling. Consumer confidence remains low. Assessments by businesses surveyed by the Federal Reserve range from unenthusiastic to glum. And there just isn’t enough time for this to change much: Trump isn’t going to be able to ride an economic boom into the election.
So he needs to run against those invisible anarchists.
Now, there has been some looting, property damage and violence associated with Black Lives Matter demonstrations. But the property damage has been minor compared with urban riots of the past — no, Portland is not “ablaze all the time” — and much of the violence is coming not from the left but from right-wing extremists.
It’s also true that there has been a recent rise in homicides, and nobody is sure why. But murders were very low last year, and even if the rate so far this year continues, New York City will have substantially fewer homicides in 2020 than it did when Rudy Giuliani was mayor.
In short, there isn’t a wave of anarchy and violence other than that unleashed by Trump himself. But can voters be swayed by the president’s lurid fantasies?
Actually, they might. For whatever reason, there’s a long history of disconnect between the realities of crime and public perceptions. As Pew has pointed out, between 1993 and 2018 violent crime in America plunged; murders in New York fell more than 80 percent. Yet over that period Americans consistently told pollsters that crime was rising.
And with travel and tourism way down, so that people can’t see the reality of other places with their own eyes, it may be especially easy for Trump to pretend that our big cities have turned into dystopian hellscapes.
What’s less clear is whether this lie will help Trump, even if people believe it. “America has gone to hell on my watch, so you must re-elect me” isn’t the greatest campaign pitch I can think of.
And polling suggests that fear is not, in fact, the president’s friend. For example, by a large margin respondents to a new Quinnipiac poll declared that having Trump as president makes them feel less safe. Reactions to Biden were much more favorable.
Still, expect Trump to keep ranting about those invisible anarchists. They’re all he has left.
https://cepr.net/seeing-the-last-acceptable-prejudice-clearly-the-more-educated-screwed-the-less-educated/
September 2, 2020
Seeing the Last Acceptable Prejudice Clearly: The More Educated Screwed the Less-Educated
By DEAN BAKER
I was happy to see Michael Sandel’s piece * in the New York Times arguing that it is still acceptable to have negative views of less-educated people because of their lack of education. Sandel makes the lonely argument that, rather than focusing on increasing opportunities for people to become more educated:
“We should focus less on arming people for a meritocratic race and more on making life better for those who lack a diploma but who make important contributions to our society — through the work they do, the families they raise and the communities they serve. This requires renewing the dignity of work and putting it at the center of our politics.”
This argument is very well-taken. It should also be warmly embraced by anyone concerned about racial inequality, because even if our most ambitious plans for improving the plights of minority children prove successful, people of color will still disproportionately hold lower paying jobs for decades into the future.
But there is one point where I have to take serious issue with Sandel. He refers to “A global economy that outsources jobs to low-wage countries has somehow come upon us and is here to stay.” While this is presented as a mainstream viewpoint, Sandel also seems to accept that this is something that happened, rather than something we did.
As I argued in Rigged [it’s free ** ] and elsewhere, it was not the natural forces of globalization and technology that made the less-educated big losers, it was how we structured these forces. We made sure that our steel workers and auto workers had to compete against low paid workers in the developing world, with the predictable result. We largely protected our doctors and dentists from the same competition. We made our patent and copyright monopolies longer and stronger to ensure that a disproportionate share of the gains from technology went to people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, rather than the average high school grad.
In short, Sandel is exactly right, but his case is even stronger than he presents here. Not only do the elites have contempt for the less-educated, but they actively designed policies to screw them. And, they won’t tell you that in the New York Times.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/opinion/education-prejudice.html
** https://deanbaker.net/images/stories/documents/Rigged.pdf
September 3, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,335,244)
Deaths ( 191,058)
India
Cases ( 3,933,124)
Deaths ( 68,569)
Mexico
Cases ( 610,957)
Deaths ( 65,816)
UK
Cases ( 340,411)
Deaths ( 41,527)
France
Cases ( 300,181)
Deaths ( 30,706)
Germany
Cases ( 248,814)
Deaths ( 9,399)
Canada
Cases ( 130,493)
Deaths ( 9,141)
China
Cases ( 85,077)
Deaths ( 4,634)
September 3, 2020
Coronavirus (Deaths per million)
UK ( 611)
US ( 577)
Mexico ( 510)
France ( 470)
Canada ( 242)
Germany ( 112)
India ( 50)
China ( 3)
Notice the ratios of deaths to coronavirus cases are 12.2%, 10.2% and 10.8% for the United Kingdom, France and Mexico respectively.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-04/Chinese-mainland-reports-25-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-Tvc83UD8B2/index.html
September 4, 2020
Chinese mainland reports 25 new COVID-19 cases, no new deaths
The Chinese mainland registered 25 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, all from overseas, the country’s health authorities said on Friday.
This is the 19th consecutive day that the mainland has reported no domestic transmissions.
No deaths linked to the coronavirus disease were recorded on Thursday, while 12 patients were discharged from hospitals.
The total number of confirmed cases stands at 85,102 and the death toll at 4,634, with 358 asymptomatic patients under medical observation.
Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-04/Chinese-mainland-reports-25-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-Tvc83UD8B2/img/4f12f37b939e48df85980c96b91cb717/4f12f37b939e48df85980c96b91cb717.jpeg
Chinese mainland new imported cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-04/Chinese-mainland-reports-25-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-Tvc83UD8B2/img/d457f21669584877a1df5b50df017b67/d457f21669584877a1df5b50df017b67.jpeg
Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-04/Chinese-mainland-reports-25-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-Tvc83UD8B2/img/2d2f1871fb524d53bfdeb308d2b9cf3f/2d2f1871fb524d53bfdeb308d2b9cf3f.jpeg
September 4, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,366,656)
Deaths ( 191,607)
September 4, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,371,620)
Deaths ( 191,689)
https://cepr.net/the-old-japans-debt-burden-is-reaching-its-limits-story/
August 31, 2020
The Old Japan’s Debt Burden is Reaching Its Limits Story
By Dean Baker
That’s a theme we have been hearing for decades. Japan is a huge embarrassment for the deficit hawks. It has a debt to GDP ratio of close to 250 percent, more than twice as high as in the United States, yet it has none of the problems that the deficit hawks tell us will come from high debt.
It currently pays 0.05 percent interest on its long-term bonds. Much of its debt carries a negative interest rate so that its debt burden is currently near zero. This means that in spite of its high debt, the country neither has interest rates nor faces a crushing debt burden.
It also does not have an inflation problem. Inflation over the last year has been 0.5 percent. The country has actually been struggling to raise its inflation rate.
Nonetheless, the New York Times quotes an expert telling us * that Japan cannot stay on its current course:
“ ‘When it comes to work style change and faster introduction of digitalization, the shock that came from corona probably made a bigger impact’ than Mr. Abe’s policies, said Takuji Okubo, the North Asia director of the Economist Corporate Network.
“With the economy in crisis, Japan’s next leader ‘needs to move in a different direction,’ he said. ‘The next prime minister will not be able to use monetary policy that much. The room for further expansion, for further easing, is very limited.’ ”
While Japan’s economy clearly has problems, like all economies, it is not clear what limits it presently faces. Its growth in per capita GDP and labor productivity is not very different ** than in the United States.
When people want to hold up Japan as a country that is suffering because of high debt, it is mostly just hand waving. There is little evidence to support this view.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/business/japan-shinzo-abe-economy.html
** https://www.cepr.net/the-crushing-burden-of-japan-s-debt-and-other-scare-stories-for-small-children/
https://cepr.net/trumps-america-first-vaccine-agenda-may-leave-us-last/
September 4, 2020
Trump’s ‘America First’ Vaccine Agenda May Leave Us Last
By DEAN BAKER
There is a very real possibility that China will have an effective vaccine against the coronavirus before the United States. China had four of the first eight vaccines to go into the final phase of clinical testing, so it’s not far-fetched to think that they will end up with the first one to prove safe and effective.
If the U.S. is even one month behind in getting a vaccine approved and distributed, at our current rate of 40,000 infections daily, and more than 1,000 deaths, a one-month delay would mean another 1.2 million infections and 30,000 deaths. If the delay is as long as six months, we would be looking at more than seven million additional infections and 180,000 deaths. In short, this is a really big deal.
China’s relative standing in the world would advance enormously if it is the country sharing a lifesaving vaccine with the rest of the world. It would also put either a second-term Trump or first-term Biden administration in an awkward position, as it tried to negotiate with China for access to a vaccine.
But stepping back from these geopolitical concerns, it is worth asking why we are in this situation in the first place. Specifically, why are we in a situation where a company or country can “own” a vaccine, and can set the terms under which people can gain access?
The issue here is that the Trump administration chose to go the route of privatizing vaccine research, with companies getting patent monopolies, rather than opting for a worldwide collective process to produce effective vaccines as quickly as possible for all of mankind. This alternative would have been possible, if the United States was prepared to take the lead in pushing it.
Contrary to common belief in policy circles, patent monopolies are not given to us by God, they are an explicit government policy to provide incentives for research and innovation. Arguably, they are a very poor tool for financing prescription drug research. Not only do they make drugs expensive when they would otherwise be cheap, they also provide perverse incentives to manufacturers.
Since the patent allows drug companies to sell for far more than the free-market price, they have enormous incentive to lie about the safety and effectiveness of their drugs. This is a standard practice that can have enormous consequences for public health. The most dramatic recent example is the opioid crisis, where several major companies have now paid billions of dollars to settle claims that they deliberately concealed evidence about the addictiveness of their drugs.
But the pandemic created an extraordinary opportunity for cooperative open-source research, breaking the patent monopoly paradigm. On this path, all results would be shared as quickly as practical, and all patents would be placed in the public domain so that anyone can use them. This massive international effort would have been a reasonable response to a worldwide crisis.
In the early days of the pandemic, as scientists struggled to understand the coronavirus, there was a large degree of international cooperation. This was noted in a May editorial in Nature magazine, which commented on the extraordinarily rapid progress in understanding the key features of the virus.
Instead of trying to build on this cooperation, the Trump administration decided to go it alone with Operation Warp Speed. This was quite explicitly a program designed to get vaccines and treatments for people in the United States, with the rest of the world coming second, at best. Other countries largely went the same path, as they both pursued their own vaccines and sought to lock in manufacturing capacity to meet the needs of their own citizens, leaving poorer countries out in the cold.
The Trump administration took its go-it-alone strategy one step further, pulling the United States out of the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access. While this grouping of 170 countries is primarily designed to ensure access to developing countries, it would also allow sharing among wealthy countries. Trump’s decision could make it harder for people in the United States to get access to vaccines developed by other countries.
The Trump administration not only went the nationalist route, it also adopted a path that seemed designed more to maximize corporate profits than to provide early and cheap vaccine access. While it gave subsidies to a number of companies, in the case of Moderna, generally considered the leading U.S. vaccine contender, it essentially paid for its research costs up front. It provided Moderna with $483 million for its preclinical research and Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. It then gave Moderna another $472 million to cover the cost of its Phase 3 clinical trial.
Incredibly, after picking up the research tab, the Trump administration also gave Moderna a patent monopoly on its vaccine, meaning that the company can dictate what price it wants to charge us. As a result, we may be waiting months longer than necessary, as China passes us by, to get access to an expensive vaccine where we paid for all the research in advance.
Unfortunately, the blame for this situation cannot be laid entirely at Donald Trump’s doorstep. Although some of the usual suspects among the Democrats have insisted that a vaccine largely funded with public dollars should be sold at a reasonable price, no major figure in the party objected to the path of patent monopolies and vaccine nationalism.
Had we decided to go the open-source route, instead of having U.S., German, Russian, and Chinese scientists competing against each other, they would be collaborating, quickly learning from the others’ successes and failures. Going this route would not preclude drug manufacturers from making a profit. They would be paid for doing research, just as was the case with Moderna. The difference is that they would not also be given a patent monopoly.
Since there would be no ownership of the science, as soon as a vaccine appeared promising, manufacturers anywhere in the world could begin to prepare facilities for mass production. They would not need anyone’s approval, apart from being able to certify that they met quality standards. This would make vaccines both widely available and cheap.
It’s understandable that Republicans would not want to go this route in developing a vaccine or treatments for the pandemic. It could set a highly visible bad example, showing the public that there are better mechanisms than patent monopolies for financing the development of new drugs. However, it is disappointing that Democrats seem to share the same concern.
In spite of its intentions, the Trump administration may still end up setting an example, for anyone who cares to use it. While the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the last decade on highly respected biomedical research, the bulk of agency funding went to more basic research. The conventional view is that if NIH, or another government agency, spent money on actually developing drugs and going through clinical trials, it would be the same thing as throwing the money away.
If the funding for Moderna, and other recipients of Operation Warp Speed grants, leads to successful vaccines and treatments, it will show that government funding of later-stage research and trials can be effective. This should allow for a serious debate as to whether we are better off having taxpayers pick up the full tab for drug development, thereafter having new drugs available as cheap generics, or whether we should stick with patent monopoly financing. That would be an interesting debate, if we could ever have it.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-08-29/Four-Chinese-COVID-19-vaccines-undergoing-phase-3-clinical-trials-TlfVjaYUSI/index.html
August 29, 2020
Four Chinese COVID-19 vaccines undergoing phase-3 clinical trials
Four Chinese COVID-19 vaccine candidates have started international phase-3 clinical trials, according to the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19.
Some of the phase-3 trials are expected to complete the first round of vaccinations in early September, with preliminary data expected as early as November….
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-03/CanSino-COVID-19-candidate-vaccine-enters-Phase-III-trial-TupCwz2Zd6/index.html
September 3, 2020
CanSino COVID-19 candidate vaccine enters Phase III trial
China has granted a patent to a COVID-19 vaccine co-developed by CanSino Biologics and a team led by infectious disease expert Chen Wei. It is a recombinant adenovirus vaccine named Ad5-nCoV.
The vaccine has completed its Phase II clinical trial and is now entering Phase III. So, what are the advantages of this vaccine candidate over other types? Will the Phase III trial prove the vaccine effective? And how do things stand in the wider global race to find a COVID-19 vaccine?
According to Zheng Zhongwei, head of China’s coronavirus vaccine development task force, China has officially authorized the emergency use of COVID-19 vaccines. Yu Xuefeng, chairman and CEO of CanSino Biologics, confirmed to CGTN Dialogue’s Zou Yue, that their COVID-19 vaccine had already been used by some Chinese peacekeepers.
“At the end of June, we were approved by the Chinese military regulatory bodies that … they granted us permission to … use (our vaccine) for the military under the emergency need,” Yu responded.
Additionally, Yu gave details about the existing COVID-19 vaccines. He said there are five types of COVID-19 vaccines, including inactivated vaccines, live attenuated influenza vaccine, adenoviral vector-based vaccines, and DNA and mRNA vaccines. He emphasized that mRNA is a new technology to develop vaccines to prevent and treat disease, showing great promise for the future….
September 5, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,392,303)
Deaths ( 192,168)
September 5, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,397,447)
Deaths ( 192,248)
September 5, 2020
Coronavirus
Israel
Cases ( 128,768)
Deaths ( 1,007)
Deaths per million ( 109)
———————————–
July 4, 2020
Coronavirus
Israel
Cases ( 29,170)
Deaths ( 330)
Deaths per million ( 36)
Having apparently approached a containment of the coronavirus, the Israeli government incautiously opened schools and businesses, and the result has been a persistent community infection spread contributing to what are now 128,768 cases in the small country as compared to 85,112 through all of mainland China.
Beyond the mistake of the incautious opening, the need is to look to what is obviously an unanticipated institutional healthcare system weakness in Israel.
September 5, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,408,594)
Deaths ( 192,403)
There were 90,594 new coronavirus cases in India today. Cases had climbed above 80,000 daily these last few weeks. The distressing point that should be made is just how undeveloped healthcare infrastructure is in India, for all the growth these last couple of decades. Indian infrastructure in general is poorly developed, as Amartya Sen pointed to in the wake of being awarded a Nobel Prize in economics, but Sen was paid little attention by development economists. Now, we find India in any day recording about as many coronavirus cases as China has recorded in all:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/opinion/why-india-trails-china.html
June 19, 2013
Why India Trails China
By AMARTYA SEN
anne:
As some in the US are advocating for a relaxation of social distancing, they seem to forget about Covid being contagious with an R-naught of 2 and maybe as high as to 5 which is still far less than the measles at 12 and close to that of small pox at the higher end of Covid’s range. Regardless of the survival rate, would you be out and about socially if this were a small pox pandemic? I say this only because too many are ignoring the consequences other than death. With the start of going back to college, we are seeing an explosion of new cases amongst the young who believe this will pass quickly and not result in death. True, they may not die; they may morph into one of those patients who have serious illness of which there are 15.000 now (Worldometer) or perhaps they survive and for months have recovery issues (reddit). I would hope some here might read the comments of Covid survivors at the Coronavirus Survivors. For many who contract Covid, they do not just wake up the next day cured.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/05/world/asia/india-economy-coronavirus.html
September 5, 2020
Coronavirus Crisis Shatters India’s Big Dreams
The country’s ambitions to become a global power, lift its poor and update its military have been set back by a sharp economic plunge, soaring infections and a widening sense of malaise.
By Jeffrey Gettleman
September 5, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,431,152)
Deaths ( 192,818)
India
Cases ( 4,110,839)
Deaths ( 70,679)
Mexico
Cases ( 623,090)
Deaths ( 66,851)
UK
Cases ( 344,164)
Deaths ( 41,549)
France
Cases ( 317,706)
Deaths ( 30,724)
Germany
Cases ( 251,056)
Deaths ( 9,401)
Canada
Cases ( 131,495)
Deaths ( 9,143)
China
Cases ( 85,112)
Deaths ( 4,634)
September 5, 2020
Coronavirus (Deaths per million)
UK ( 611)
US ( 582)
Mexico ( 518)
France ( 471)
Canada ( 242)
Germany ( 112)
India ( 51)
China ( 3)
Notice the ratios of deaths to coronavirus cases are 12.1%, 9.7% and 10.7% for the United Kingdom, France and Mexico respectively.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-06/Chinese-mainland-reports-10-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-Tyvqw9qrW8/index.html
September 6, 2020
Chinese mainland reports 10 new COVID-19 cases, no new deaths
The Chinese mainland registered 10 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, all from overseas, the country’s health authorities said on Sunday.
This is the 21st consecutive day without domestic transmissions in the Chinese mainland.
On Saturday, there were no deaths linked to the coronavirus disease, and 18 patients were discharged from hospitals.
The total number of confirmed cases stands at 85,122, and the death toll at 4,634, with 329 asymptomatic patients under medical observation.
Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-06/Chinese-mainland-reports-10-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-Tyvqw9qrW8/img/2cb21af19b41483cb23b64805c2108ac/2cb21af19b41483cb23b64805c2108ac.jpeg
Chinese mainland new imported cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-06/Chinese-mainland-reports-10-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-Tyvqw9qrW8/img/36736f0cfb9e4263b716cbbc17e6efea/36736f0cfb9e4263b716cbbc17e6efea.jpeg
Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-06/Chinese-mainland-reports-10-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-Tyvqw9qrW8/img/d23804c4a59646e7b6ef2e3bbe4dcb3d/d23804c4a59646e7b6ef2e3bbe4dcb3d.jpeg
September 6, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,438,175)
Deaths ( 192,937)
September 6, 2020
Coronavirus
Israel
Cases ( 130,157)
Deaths ( 1,012)
Deaths per million ( 110)
———————————–
July 4, 2020
Coronavirus
Israel
Cases ( 29,170)
Deaths ( 330)
Deaths per million ( 36)
Having apparently approached a containment of the coronavirus, the Israeli government incautiously opened schools and businesses, and the result has been a persistent community infection spread contributing to what are now 130,157 cases in the small country as compared to 85,122 through all of mainland China.
Beyond the mistake of the incautious opening, the need is to look to what is obviously an unanticipated institutional healthcare system weakness in Israel. Determining how the Israeli healthcare system can be strengthened, can serve as a model.
September 6, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,441,139)
Deaths ( 192,956)
Run:
As some in the US are advocating for a relaxation of social distancing…
[ An important comment to read; above. ]
anne:
At 18 and 19 years of age, so many of us did what we had to do in the sixties going into the seventies by being drafted, enlisting, going to Canada, etc. This is not different and far less threatening than being one of the 58,000 who perished. They have been lied to as many of us were lied too. This is about growing up and making a small sacrifice.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/06/us/colleges-coronavirus-students.html
September 6, 2020
A New Front in America’s Pandemic: College Towns
The coronavirus is spiking around campuses from Texas to Iowa to North Carolina as students return.
By Sarah Watson, Shawn Hubler, Danielle Ivory and Robert Gebeloff
September 6, 2020
Coronavirus
India
Cases ( 4,202,562)
Deaths ( 71,687)
China
Cases ( 85,122)
Deaths ( 4,634)
Coronavirus (Deaths per million)
India ( 52)
China ( 3)
September 6, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,460,250)
Deaths ( 193,250)
India
Cases ( 4,202,562)
Deaths ( 71,687)
Mexico
Cases ( 629,409)
Deaths ( 67,326)
UK
Cases ( 347,152)
Deaths ( 41,551)
France
Cases ( 324,777)
Deaths ( 30,724)
Germany
Cases ( 251,724)
Deaths ( 9,401)
Canada
Cases ( 131,895)
Deaths ( 9,145)
China
Cases ( 85,122)
Deaths ( 4,634)
September 6, 2020
Coronavirus (Deaths per million)
UK ( 611)
US ( 583)
Mexico ( 521)
France ( 471)
Canada ( 242)
Germany ( 112)
India ( 52)
China ( 3)
Notice the ratios of deaths to coronavirus cases are 12.0%, 9.5% and 10.7% for the United Kingdom, France and Mexico respectively.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-07/Chinese-mainland-reports-12-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-TA9wwLZl0A/index.html
September 7, 2020
Chinese mainland reports 12 new COVID-19 cases, no new deaths
The Chinese mainland registered 12 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, all from overseas, the country’s health authorities said on Monday.
This is the 22nd consecutive day without new domestic transmissions in the Chinese mainland.
On Sunday, there were no deaths linked to the coronavirus disease, and 18 patients were discharged from hospitals.
The total number of confirmed cases stands at 85,134, and the death toll at 4,634, with 329 asymptomatic patients under medical observation.
Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-06/Chinese-mainland-reports-10-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-Tyvqw9qrW8/img/2cb21af19b41483cb23b64805c2108ac/2cb21af19b41483cb23b64805c2108ac.jpeg
Chinese mainland new imported cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-07/Chinese-mainland-reports-12-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-TA9wwLZl0A/img/2319bee1b6744804acd7d27515163475/2319bee1b6744804acd7d27515163475.jpeg
Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-07/Chinese-mainland-reports-12-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-TA9wwLZl0A/img/5ac93876fa5a4c04827b7b3a590c1952/5ac93876fa5a4c04827b7b3a590c1952.jpeg
There has been no coronavirus death on the Chinese mainland since May 17. There has been no community or domestic coronavirus case for 22 days. Since June there have been only 2 limited community clusters of infections, in Beijing and Urumqi in Xinjiang, both of which were contained with mass testing, contact tracing and quarantine, and both outbreaks ended in a few weeks. Imported coronavirus cases are caught at entry points with required testing and immediate quarantine. Asymptomatic cases are all quarantined.
September 7, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,466,498)
Deaths ( 193,283)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/health/coronavirus-mental-health-long-hauler.html
September 7, 2020
For Long-Haulers, Covid-19 Takes a Toll on Mind as Well as Body
“It makes you depressed, anxious that it’s never going to go away.”
By Emma Goldberg
September 7, 2020
Coronavirus
Israel
Cases ( 133,183)
Deaths ( 1,026)
Deaths per million ( 112)
———————————–
July 4, 2020
Coronavirus
Israel
Cases ( 29,170)
Deaths ( 330)
Deaths per million ( 36)
Having apparently approached a containment of the coronavirus, the Israeli government incautiously opened schools and businesses, and the result has been a persistent community infection spread contributing to what are now 133,183 cases in the small country as compared to 85,134 through all of mainland China.
Beyond the mistake of the incautious opening, the need is to look to what is obviously an unanticipated institutional healthcare system weakness in Israel. Determining how the Israeli healthcare system can be strengthened, can serve as a model.
September 7, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,470,816)
Deaths ( 193,358)
September 7, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 6,475,505)
Deaths ( 193,399)
September 7, 2020
Coronavirus
Dominican Republic
Cases ( 99,898)
Deaths ( 1,864)
Deaths per million ( 172)
———————————–
Cuba
Cases ( 4,352)
Deaths ( 102)
Deaths per million ( 9)
While the Dominican Republic has been the fastest growing country in Gross Domestic Product per capita in the Western Hemisphere since 1971, Cuba has been continually sanctioned economically by the United States through these years. However, Cuba has a far superior healthcare system as reflected now in the coronavirus experience of the countries and for years past in a range of critical healthcare experiences from infant mortality to life expectancy.
Today, even in the midst of the international epidemic, the United States added to the economic sanctions on Cuba.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1200192.shtml
September 7, 2020
Chinese-made vaccine able to fight all mutations: developer
By Leng Shumei
________________________________
Will be ready for mass vaccination at low price
________________________________
Chinese military infectious disease expert Chen Wei said a COVID-19 vaccine her team produced can be effective against all existing mutations of the novel coronavirus, noting that they are preparing for mass vaccination at a low price whenever phase three clinical trial results come out….