The BriefRestless citizenry; clinical success and failure; holding China to account
These four major developments on the coronavirus front in the past week caught our eye:
1. Difficult reopening. More and more countries are moving to reopen their economies, schools, and other parts of society, and each offers a different mix of measures aiming to balance economic recovery, societal (new) normalcy, and health security, with an eye to avoiding a second wave of infections in the fall. They all share one thing: Their citizens are becoming restless.
2. Clinical success. The FDA om Friday allowed emergency use of remdesivir, the first drug that appears to help some COVID-19 patients recover faster, a milestone in the global search for effective therapies against the coronavirus.
3. Clinical failure. Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin have been aggressively promoted by President Trump as possibly “the biggest game changer in the history of medicine.” But in the largest clinical trial yet of the two drugs, they failed to have any benefit for infected patients, while significantly increasing the risk of electrical changes to the heart and cardiac arrhythmias, which could lead to heart attacks, strokes, and death.
4. The China syndrome. More and more countries are calling for an impartial and credible investigation of China’s conduct regarding the coronavirus between November 2019 and the end of February 2020.
1. Difficult reopening. More and more countries are moving to reopen their economies, schools, and other parts of society, and each offers a different mix of measures aiming to balance economic recovery, societal (new) normalcy, and health security, with an eye to avoiding a second wave of infections in the fall.
What these different countries share, though, is a sense of growing popular impatience, confusion, and anger, as businesses are idle, people are unemployed, economic hardships grow, and the cost of the strict lockdowns become more apparent.
In Israel, owners of small businesses argue that they have not been treated fairly in comparison with large businesses, on the one hand, and salaried employees, on the other hand. There is an open talk of creating a new political party which will focus on the interests and needs of small businesses which do not have the means to hire lobbyists and big-name lawyers, and do not have unions to help them, either.
In Italy, which has suffered the deadliest outbreak in Europe, vocal protests from politicians, business leaders, mayors, and others have created a sense of confusion and chaos as the country prepares to enter a reopening phase on Monday. In Italy, too, small business owners say their plight is ignored, and thousands of small-business owners have given their mayors the keys to their restaurants, cafes, and hair salons.
In France, teachers say that government plans to gradually reopen schools starting 11 May have created confusion, and that some of government instructions contradict each other.
In Spain, public pressure has forced the government to retreat on key steps of its plan to reopen the economy. The Spanish socialist government is a minority government, and the conservative opposition is not likely to vote for an extension of the lockdown beyond 10 May.
2. Clinical success. The FDA on Friday allowed emergency use of remdesivir, the first drug that appears to help some COVID-19 patients recover faster, a milestone in the global search for effective therapies against the coronavirus.
The FDA acted after preliminary results from a government-sponsored study showed that remdesivir, shortened the time to recovery by 31 percent, or about four days on average, for hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Those given the drug were able to leave the hospital in 11 days on average vs. 15 days for the comparison group.
