• What Are Germany's Updated Lockdown Measures?

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday announced the next phase of the country’s plan to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus and its resulting disease, COVID-19. Elizabeth Schumacher writes in DW that the new regulations are as follows: Retailers smaller than 800 square meters (8,610 square feet) will be allowed to open under the current physical distancing rules on April 20; schools will slowly re-open their doors on May 4, with pupils in their last years of primary and secondary school having the priority. Schools that re-open must have a strict hygiene plan in place; hair salons can resume business on May 4 if strict protective measures are observed; the ongoing rule that individuals may only meet with one person outside their household remains in place, as well as the rule about keeping a minimum of 1.5 meters (5 feet) away from others; large events, such as sports and concerts, will remain banned until August 31; bars, restaurants, day care centers, theaters, and cinemas will stay closed until further notice. Religious gatherings are also canceled for the foreseeable future; protective masks are “strongly recommended,” but not mandatory, in shops and on public transportation; strict controls at Germany’s borders will stay in place for at least 20 more days.

  • Don't You Dare Ask When the Lockdown Will End! Matt Hancock Loses His Cool as He Tells Radio Interviewer that the Government Won't Release Exit Plan Because Public Can't Be Trusted with It

    The British Health Secretary Matt Hancock om Thursday insisted the public cannot be trusted with a coronavirus “exit strategy” as they might stop obeying lockdown rules. James Tapsfield writrs in the Daily Mail that in a bad-tempered interview as the government prepares to extend draconian curbs for another three weeks, the Health Secretary said he recognized that “everybody wants to know what the future looks like.” But he flatly dismissed calls for the government to flesh out how the restrictions will finally be eased, despite mounting fears that they are wreaking havoc on the economy. Hancock said the “clarity of messaging” had a “direct impact on how many people obey” social distancing rules.

  • Donald Trump Is a Braggart but He Has a Point about China's Role in the Coronavirus Crisis

    Were U.S. President Donald Trump a thatch-haired schoolboy, rather than the most powerful man on Earth, Stephen Glover writes in the Daily Mail, “I’ve no doubt he would be the bane of his poor teachers’ lives and attract their ire.” The teachers would note his nasty habit of trying to shift the blame on to others, and his termly reports would be full of reproving remarks about his boastfulness, mendacity, self-righteousness and generally questionable character. And yet a fair-minded teacher would have to concede that, for all his defects, the wayward pupil is sometimes able to extract a nugget of truth which evades the notice of more conventional minds, even if he is then inclined to fly off at a tangent. So it is with the President’s attack on the World Health Organisation (WHO), which Donald Trump accused of being ‘China-centric’ before announcing on Tuesday that he is freezing the funding it receives from Washington. “I [don’t] doubt that part of Trump’s motivation is to deflect some of the fire being directed at him for his flawed management of the crisis towards China and the WHO. This, after all, is election year.  The fact remains, however, that the WHO (a United Nations agency) is a very flawed outfit. It has been far too accommodating of Beijing.”

  • Trump Is Right to Ditch the West's Frighteningly Naive Stance on China

    It’s tricky to get ready for battle when the enemy has a gun to your head, Sherelle Jacobs writes in The Telegraph. Trump’s vow to suspend World Health Organization funding is an attempt to kick the sand of chaos into a situation where its rival has the advantage. Dangerous tactics? Certainly. But Washington is running out of options. This “we are witnessing the fallout of the CCP’s boldest new ruse – installing stooges at the helm of once credible bodies. That the WHO should praise China, having swallowed its faulty intelligence in January that investigations had found no evidence of human-to-human coronavirus transmission, is as absurd as it is unsurprising.” We may not be able to police the world’s second power, but we can better protect ourselves, Jacobs writes. “Britain hasn’t got the memo…. we must urgently [prepare] for the tech Cold war around the corner, treating healthcare as part of our defense sector, and becoming unreliant on China for crucial products and infrastructure.”

  • Amid Talk of Reopening, Fauci Warns U.S. Not There Yet with COVID-19

    In an interview yesterday with the Associated Press, Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said opening up the nation on May 1 is “a bit overly optimistic.” His comments come a day after President Donald Trump announced a new reopening task force, meant to help guide the country back to economic health after the national COVID-19 30 April physical distancing campaign ends. In a heated back-and-forth with reporters, yesterday Trump said that only the president has the ability to call the shots on when and how to reopen the country. But Fauci said yesterday, “We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on, and we’re not there yet.” Meanwhile, governors yesterday and yesterday continued to outline their plans for reopening.

  • 5 Burning Questions about Tech Efforts to Track COVID-19 Cases

    The pitch from technology companies goes something like this: We can tap phone data to track Covid-19 infections in U.S. communities and swiftly warn people about potential exposure, all without ever compromising anyone’s privacy. Casey Ross writes in STAT that Apple and Google turned heads a few days ago when they announced a joint effort to bolster this public health service — a task known as contact tracing — by building software into smartphones that relies on Bluetooth technology to track users’ proximity to one another. Facebook is participating in a similar effort led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While their brands give them instant credibility in the business world, infectious disease experts aren’t convinced the technology offers a tidy solution to such a complicated public health problem.

  • EU to Unveil Virus Exit Plan, Hoping to Avoid Chaos and Medical System Collapse

    The European Union moved Wednesday to head off a chaotic and potentially disastrous easing of restrictions that are limiting the spread of the coronavirus, warning its 27 nations to move very cautiously as they return to normal life and base their actions on scientific advice. Lorne Cook writes in The Times of Israel that with Austria, the Czech Republic and Denmark already lifting some lockdown measures, the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, was rushing out its roadmap for members of the world’s biggest trade bloc to coordinate an exit from the lockdowns, which they expect should take several months. Some 80,000 people have now died in Europe from the disease — about two-thirds of the global toll.

  • The Curve Appears to be Flattening — Now What?

    In his previous article, “How Will We Know When the COVID-19 Pandemic is Getting Better,” published on 26 March, Kenny Lin outlined 4 signs in the data we should look for: 1) Decrease in rate of growth of daily cases; 2) Decrease in absolute number of daily cases; 3) Decrease in rate of growth of daily deaths and absolute number of daily deaths; and 4) Decrease in hospital admissions and ventilator utilization. In a 13 April article in Medium, Lin writes that the good news is that #1, the number of new daily COVID-19 cases in the United States, seems to have plateaued at approximately 30,000/day across the country. In some states such as Michigan, the number of new daily cases appears to be declining. Now is not the time to let up, he says. That time is coming, but it is not here yet.

  • Two Million Could Lose Jobs in U.K. in the Coronavirus Lockdown

    Britain should prepare for tough times ahead, the chancellor warned yesterday as the financial watchdog predicted that the lockdown could leave more than two million people unemployed and shrink the economy by 35 per cent. Oliver Wright, Philip Aldrick, and Gurpreet Narwan write in The Times that in a bleak forecast, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said that net public sector borrowing would reach £273 billion, the largest single-year deficit since the Second World War. However, economists suggested that the damage could be even worse. They said the OBR’s prediction that the economy would bounce back quickly as soon as restrictions were lifted, resulting in an annual reduction in GDP of up to 13 per cent, was too optimistic.

  • Jury Still Out on Swedish Coronavirus Strategy

    Over the past few weeks, a huge amount of energy has been spent trying to prove Sweden’s more lenient approach to the coronavirus a failure. Freddy Sayers writes in Unherd that liberal news outlets in the U.S. have commissioned opinion pieces from Right-wing Swedish commentators accusing the country of a pivot to national chauvinism; President Trump has talked about the Swedish “herd” approach and how “they are suffering very, very badly“; and Twitter is full of apocalyptic charts that are shared thousands of times and which seem to prove beyond doubt that the Swedes should have locked down better, and sooner. The truth is, the Swedish epidemic is far from the out of control disaster its critics would like to believe. A clearer way of looking at death numbers in Sweden and other countries, courtesy of the excellent Our World in Data, is the daily trend of deaths per million. Here you get a good sense of the trajectories. All of the countries listed, except Sweden, have full national lockdowns. And yet Sweden is roughly in the middle of the pack. This is quite remarkable in itself, when set against the dominant narrative that lockdowns are the only thing capable of ‘flattening’ these curves and preventing tragedies that are many times worse.

  • Top Israeli Prof Claims Simple Stats Show Virus Plays Itself Out after 70 Days

    A prominent Israeli mathematician, analyst, and former general claims simple statistical analysis demonstrates that the spread of COVID-19 peaks after about 40 days and declines to almost zero after 70 days — no matter where it strikes, and no matter what measures governments impose to try to thwart it. Prof. Isaac Ben-Israel, head of the Security Studies program in Tel Aviv University and the chairman of the National Council for Research and Development, told Israel’s Channel 12 that in Israel, about 140 people normally die every day. To have shuttered much of the economy because of a virus that is killing one or two a day is a radical error that is unnecessarily costing Israel 20 percent of its GDP, he charged. He said the policy of lockdowns and closures was a case of “mass hysteria.” Simple social distancing would be sufficient, he said.

  • COVID-19 & World Commerce | Tracking NYC COVID-19 Cases | Eradicate COVID-19 by Decree?, and more

    ·  The Cold Political Calculation Behind Donald Trump’s WHO Funding Suspension

    ·  The Coronavirus Crisis Will Change the World of Commerce

    ·  Trump Aide Peter Navarro Warned of a Deadly Pandemic Emerging from China—in 2006

    ·  As the Coronavirus Spreads, Conspiracy Theories Are Going Viral Too

    ·  Viktor Orban Can’t Eradicate the Coronavirus by Decree

    ·  Did the Coronavirus Escape from a Chinese Lab? Here’s What the Pentagon Says

    ·  Pentagon Bristles at Anti-American Rhetoric in Foreign Coronavirus Reports

    ·  How China Deceived the WHO

    ·  How the World Health Organization’s Failure to Challenge China over Coronavirus Cost Us Dearly

    ·  How the Hunt for a Coronavirus Vaccine Could Go Horribly Wrong

    ·  China’s Initial Coronavirus Outbreak in Wuhan Spread Twice as Fast as We Thought, New Study Suggests

    ·  Why We Can’t Trust Positive COVID Test Counts to Track the Pandemic in NYC

  • The Challenge of Proximity Apps For COVID-19 Contact Tracing

    Around the world, a diverse and growing chorus is calling for the use of smartphone proximity technology to fight COVID-19. In particular, public health experts and others argue that smartphones could provide a solution to an urgent need for rapid, widespread contact tracing—that is, tracking who infected people come in contact with as they move through the world. Proponents of this approach point out that many people already own smartphones, which are frequently used to track users’ movements and interactions in the physical world. But it is not a given that smartphone tracking will solve this problem, and the risks it poses to individual privacy and civil liberties are considerable.

  • Bluetooth Signals from Your Smartphone Could Automate COVID-19 Contact Tracing While Preserving Privacy

    Imagine you’ve been diagnosed as Covid-19 positive. Health officials begin contact tracing to contain infections, asking you to identify people with whom you’ve been in close contact. The obvious people come to mind — your family, your coworkers. But what about the woman ahead of you in line last week at the pharmacy, or the man bagging your groceries? Or any of the other strangers you may have come close to in the past 14 days? Researchers are developing a system that augments “manual” contact tracing by public health officials, while preserving the privacy of all individuals. The system enables smartphones to transmit “chirps” to nearby devices could notify people if they have been near an infected person.

  • The Defense Production Act and the Failure to Prepare for Catastrophic Incidents

    When early data from Mexico suggested that a new strain of influenza, H1N1, might have a mortality rate between 1 and 10 percent in April 2009, the U.S. government sprang into action. Washington anticipated that the H1N1 virus might lead to a public health catastrophe as bad or worse than what is happening today with COVID-19. Jared Brown writes that the lessons of 2009 were not learnt – or implemented. “The executive branch’s ad-hoc application of the Defense Production Act’s authorities to this pandemic is Exhibit A of how our government, across multiple Republican and Democratic administrations and throughout the national security enterprise, has failed to develop or adapt the Act’s tools for the threats of the 21st century,” he writes.