• Ministers Told to Plan Gentle Path to Recovery With Ban on Alarming Talk of Coronavirus “Exit Strategy”

    British government ministers have been told to abandon talk of a coronavirus “exit strategy” as they try to ease public fears about an eventual end to the lockdown by moving towards a gradual “unwinding” of social distancing rules. Gordon Rayner and Harry Yorke write in The Telegraph that the government has been so successful in convincing people of the need to stay at home that there are concerns it could prove difficult to persuade them it is safe to return to work once the decision is taken to ease the current restrictions. Dominic Raab, the acting Prime Minister, made clear on Monday that the lockdown will stay in place beyond a legally required review of it this Thursday, but said there were “positive signs” that Britain was “starting to win this struggle.” He is being urged by some members of the Cabinet to announce that the lockdown will be reviewed again next week – rather than next month – to signal that the lifting of some restrictions is under consideration.

  • The Coronavirus Crisis: A Catalyst for Entrepreneurship

    Throughout human history, crises have been pivotal in developing our societies. Pandemics have helped advance health-care systems, wars have fueled technological innovations and the global financial crisis helped advance tech companies like Uber and Airbnb. The present coronavirus pandemic will arguably not be an exception; entrepreneurs can be expected to rise to the challenge. Businesses play a key role both in helping society get through an economic crisis and in creating innovations that shape society after a crisis. So one key question is: how will the ongoing crisis influence future society? While it’s hard to predict the future, we can develop an understanding of what is ahead by analyzing current trends. It’s clear the post-pandemic future will be different. What’s happening during the crisis will have a lasting impact on society. Current signs of entrepreneurial initiative and goodwill give us some cause for optimism. In the words of Stanford economist Paul Romer: “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”

  • Lockdown Shock Could Trigger “Unexploded Debt Bomb”

    An “unexploded bomb” of debt is being destabilised by the coronavirus shock, the global banking body has warned, as it predicted an “unprecedented surge” in borrowing ahead. Tom Rees writes in The Telegraph that more than $20 trillion (£16 trillion) of global bonds and loans due before the end of the year pose a “refinancing risk” with vulnerable emerging markets heavily exposed to the latest crunch, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF). The global economy is starting a new crisis with corporate, household and government debt at levels never seen before after a decade of ultra-low borrowing costs and risky investor behavior. Signs of strains have already emerged in corporate credit, particularly the junk bond and leveraged loan markets, while government borrowing is set to enter uncharted territory. Rees notes that the world economy is entering a recession with $87 trillion more debt than at the onset of the financial crisis. The global debt to GDP ratio has risen by 40 percentage points over that period to an eye-watering 322pc and will hit 342pc this year, the IIF said. Unprecedented government support for economies and interest rates being slashed to new record lows are expected to drive debt even higher in the coming years.

  • Coronavirus Disease 2019: The Harms of Exaggerated Information and Non‐Evidence‐Based Measures

    Those arguing in favor of lockdowns say that postponing the epidemic wave (“flattening the curve”) gains time to develop vaccines and reduces strain on the health system, which otherwise might be overwhelmed. John P. A. Ioannidis writes in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation, however, that vaccines take many months (or even years) to develop and test properly. “Maintaining lockdowns for many months may have even worse consequences than an epidemic wave that runs an acute course,” he writes. “Focusing on protecting susceptible individuals may be preferable to maintaining countrywide lockdowns long-term.” He also notes that different coronaviruses actually infect millions of people every year, and they are common especially in the elderly and in hospitalized patients with respiratory illness in the winter. The only unique aspect of this year’s coronavirus outbreak is the unprecedented attention it has received in the media.

  • Population-Level COVID-19 Mortality Risk for Non-Elderly Individuals Overall and for Non-Elderly Individuals without Underlying Diseases in Pandemic Epicenters

    John P. A. Ioannidis and his colleagues did research aiming to evaluated the relative risk of COVID-19 death in people <65 years old versus older individuals in the general population; provide estimates of absolute risk of COVID-19 death at the population level; and understand what proportion of COVID-19 deaths occur in non-elderly people without underlying diseases in epicenters of the pandemic. The researchers concluded that “People <65 years old have very small risks of COVID-19 death even in the hotbeds of the pandemic and deaths for people <65 years without underlying predisposing conditions are remarkably uncommon. Strategies focusing specifically on protecting high-risk elderly individuals should be considered in managing the pandemic.”

  • UN Warns of Measles Spike as COVID-19 Halts Vaccination Campaigns

    Essential measles vaccination programs around the world are being postponed indefinitely for more than 100 million children as healthcare systems focus on coronavirus and countries enforce lockdowns and social distancing. The UN urges governments to keep track of unvaccinated children.

  • Safe Paths: A Privacy-First Approach to Contact Tracing

    Fast containment is key to halting the progression of pandemics, and rapid determination of a diagnosed patient’s locations and contact history is a vital step for communities and cities. This process is labor-intensive, susceptible to human memory errors, and fraught with privacy concerns. Smartphones can aid in this process, though any type of mass surveillance network and analytics can lead to — or be misused by — a surveillance state.

  • Empty Non-Coronavirus Beds Raise Fears That Sickest Are Avoiding NHS

    Close to half the beds in some English hospitals are lying empty in a sign that people may be failing to seek help for other life-threatening conditions during the coronavirus pandemic. Sarah Neville, Andrew Bounds, Mure Dickie, Federica Cocco, and Bethan Staton write in the Financial Times that the National Health Service in England moved aggressively last month to release more than 30,000 beds in anticipation of a flood of patients infected by Covid-19, halting all non-emergency surgery from mid-April and discharging anyone medically fit into the community.
    However, people familiar with the situation say that the speed and scale of the drop in demand for other services has surprised health leaders, fueling concerns that people are failing to seek help even for conditions as serious as suspected heart attacks.
    NHS England said that across the country, about 60 percent of beds in acute hospitals were currently occupied. A year ago, the equivalent figure was a little over 90 percent.
    A similar phenomenon has been seen in Scotland.
    As the U.K. government considers how and when to lift the lockdown, ministers are also concerned about the knock-on health impact on citizens who are staying away from hospitals and not receiving treatment for other ailments.

  • U.S. COVID-19 Cases Top 500,000; India Extends Lockdown

    The number of COVID-19 cases in the United States passed 500,000 yesterday, and deaths topped 20,000, while on the international front, India’s president extended the country’s lockdown and health officials urged Belarus to take new steps to curb its growing outbreak. The number of deaths in the United States is now higher than Italy’s total. At the global level, the total reached 1,767,855 cases yesterday from 185 countries, with 108,281 deaths reported.

  • Next potential shortage: Drugs needed to run ventilators

    As hospitals scour the country for scarce ventilators to treat critically ill patients stricken by the new coronavirus, pharmacists are beginning to sound an alarm that could become just as urgent: Drugs that go hand in hand with ventilators are running low even as demand is surging.
    Michael Ganio, of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, told Michael Rezendes and Linda A. Johnson of the Associated Press that demand for the drugs at greater New York hospitals has spiked as much as 600 percent over the last month, even though hospitals have stopped using them for elective surgery.
    “These ventilators will be rendered useless without an adequate supply of the medications,” Society CEO Paul Abramowitz said in an April 1 letter to Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force.
    Nationwide, demand for the drugs surged 73 percent in March, according Dan Kistner, a pharmaceuticals expert at Vizient, Inc., which negotiates drug prices for hospitals throughout the country. Supplies, according to Vizient data, have not kept pace.

  • Could an Existing Drug Help against the New Coronavirus?

    Perhaps no new drug against the novel coronavirus SARS CoV-2 needs to be found, as it is possible that existing active substances could help against the COVID-19 pathogen. Alexander Freund writes in Deutsche Welle that the advantages of using drugs that are already on the market are obvious: Not only is it cheaper to repurpose drugs that have already been approved or developed, but, above all, it is much faster because the lengthy clinical test phases can be shortened. Although at least 68 vaccine projects have been started worldwide, the German pharmaceutical association VfA  believes that even if a suitable vaccine is found in 2020, mass vaccinations are unlikely to be carried out even in Germany this year. So the only alternatives are either further isolation for months or treatment with already existing or developed active substances.

  • Aberdeen-Based NovaBiotics to Test Life-Saving Cystic Fibrosis Drug on COVID-19 Patients

    Aberdeen life sciences firm NovaBiotics plans to test one of its drugs on Covid-19 patients with secondary lung infections. Hamish Burns writes in Insider that Nylexa ‘supercharges’ antibiotics to help them tackle difficult to treat and drug-resistant bacteria. Many of the lung infections in Covid-19 patients do not respond to antibiotics and more than half of the patients who died in Hubei province, the epicenter of the pandemic in China, succumbed to a secondary bacterial infection or sepsis.
    NovaBiotics could begin making Nylexa for trials in May and in partnership with the NHS and subject to regulatory approvals, clinical studies could get under way soon after on patients hospitalized with Covid-19.
    The active ingredient of Nylexa has proven to be safe and effective in clinical studies carried out across the UK, Italy and the US for bacterial lung infections associated with cystic fibrosis (CF). Nylexa could be repositioned as a Covid-19 therapy and tested on patients in the second half of 2020, ahead of any vaccine being available.

  • Coronavirus: People in Tall Buildings May Be More at Risk – Here’s How to Stay Safe

    The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged health systems and public health authorities worldwide. When you have a rapidly spreading virus with a high transmission rate, you have to investigate all possible infection risks.
    Michael Gormley writes in The Conversation that one area of risk that is yet to receive any attention is big buildings such as tower blocks or hospitals. While direct person-to-person transmission is still the most common means of acquiring the illness, our research suggests that occupants in tall buildings could become infected if defects occur in the plumbing system. It’s important for people to be aware of this and take steps to keep themselves safe.
    His group’s work at the Institute for Sustainable Building Design at Heriot-Watt University stems from an outbreak of the SARS virus in 2003 at an apartment block in Hong Kong, known as Amoy Gardens. In a building complex ranging from 33 to 41 storeys with some 19,000 residents, there were more than 300 confirmed cases and 42 deaths – around one-sixth of all SARS infections and fatalities on the island as a whole.

  • Wary Spain Starts to Ease Restrictions

    Spain is taking its first steps towards ending its lockdown today with some businesses reopening despite the latest figures showing a rise in coronavirus deaths after three days of decline. Pablo Sharrock writes in The Times that Spain has suffered more deaths than any country except the United States and Italy and has the highest mortality rate at 35.5 deaths per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University
    Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish prime minister, insisted that the state of emergency and the lockdown were still in force. “We are not entering a phase of de-escalation,” he said yesterday. “The state of emergency is still in force and so is the lockdown. The only thing that has come to an end is the two-week extreme economic hibernation period.”

  • The Normal Economy Is Never Coming Back

    The latest U.S. data proves the world is in its steepest freefall ever—and the old economic and political playbooks don’t apply.
    Adam Tooze writes in Foreign Policy that this collapse is not the result of a financial crisis. It is not even the direct result of the pandemic. The collapse is the result of a deliberate policy choice, which is itself a radical novelty. It is easier, it turns out, to stop an economy than it is to stimulate it. But the efforts that are being made to cushion the effects are themselves historically unprecedented. In the United States, the congressional stimulus package agreed within days of the shutdown is by far the largest in U.S. peacetime history. Across the world, there has been a move to open the purse strings. Fiscally conservative Germany has declared an emergency and removed its limits on public debt. Altogether, we are witnessing the largest combined fiscal effort launched since World War II. Its effects will make themselves felt in weeks and months to come. It is already clear that the first round may not be enough.