Music: Bim Sherman — ‘Can I Be Free From Crying’ (The Underwolves Mix)
Trump weighs restarting economy despite warnings from U.S. public health officials
The Washington Post reports: President Trump is weighing calls from some Republican lawmakers and White House advisers to scale back steps to contain the coronavirus despite the advice of federal health officials as a growing number of conservatives argue that the impact on the economy has become too severe, according to several people with knowledge of the internal deliberations. Loosening restrictions on social distancing would override the internal warnings of senior U.S. health officials, including Anthony S. Fauci, who have…
The coronavirus can be stopped, but only with harsh steps, experts agree
The New York Times reports: Terrifying though the coronavirus may be, it can be turned back. China, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan have demonstrated that, with furious efforts, the contagion can be brought to heel. Whether they can keep it suppressed remains to be seen. But for the United States to repeat their successes will take extraordinary levels of coordination and money from the country’s leaders, and extraordinary levels of trust and cooperation from citizens. It will also require international…
Hold the line as the epidemic inevitably gets worse
Jonathan Smith writes: As an infectious disease epidemiologist (although a lowly one), at this point I feel morally obligated to provide some information on what we are seeing from a transmission dynamic perspective and how they apply to the social distancing measures. Like any good scientist I have noticed two things that are either not articulated or not present in the “literature” of social media. I have also relied on my much smarter infectious disease epidemiologist friends for peer review…
Can Denmark’s attempt to freeze their economy help the world avoid a Great Depression
Derek Thompson interviewed Flemming Larsen, a professor at the Center for Labor Market Research at Denmark’s Aalborg University: Larsen: [T]he government is paying companies for employees who are going home and not working. These workers are being paid a wage to do nothing. The government is saying: Lots of people are suddenly in danger of being fired. But if we have firing rounds, it will be very difficult to adapt later. This way, the company maintains their workforce under the…
I’m 26 and was healthy. Coronavirus sent me to the hospital
Fiona Lowenstein writes: I’m 26. I don’t have any prior autoimmune or respiratory conditions. I work out six times a week, and abstain from cigarettes. I thought my role in the current health crisis would be as an ally to the elderly and compromised. Then, I was hospitalized for Covid-19. On Friday, March 13, only a few hours after deciding I would begin to socially distance for the well-being of others, I developed a fever and headache. I tried not…
Lost sense of smell may be peculiar clue to coronavirus infection
The New York Times reports: A mother who was infected with the coronavirus couldn’t smell her baby’s full diaper. Cooks who can usually name every spice in a restaurant dish can’t smell curry or garlic, and food tastes bland. Others say they can’t pick up the sweet scent of shampoo or the foul odor of kitty litter. Anosmia, the loss of sense of smell, and ageusia, an accompanying diminished sense of taste, have emerged as peculiar telltale signs of Covid-19,…
Can a century-old TB vaccine steel the immune system against the new coronavirus?
Science reports: Researchers in four countries will soon start a clinical trial of an unorthodox approach to the new coronavirus. They will test whether a century-old vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), a bacterial disease, can rev up the human immune system in a broad way, allowing it to better fight the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 and, perhaps, prevent infection with it altogether. The studies will be done in physicians and nurses, who are at higher risk of becoming infected…
Music: Bim Sherman — ‘Just Can’t Stand It’
U.S. axed CDC expert job in China months before virus outbreak
Reuters reports: Several months before the coronavirus pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China, Reuters has learned. The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue. The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration…
Can we avoid an economic depression?
Ryan Heath, author of Global Translations at Politico, writes: With whole sectors halted, most economists now agree the West is already in deep recession. Last week’s conversations about medium-term opportunities from the crisis (cheap energy, diversifying from China and remote working efficiencies) have become background noise. That doesn’t mean we are automatically headed for a 1930s-style depression. But the speed of economic collapse is different and terrifying in 2020. It took three years for the economy to shrink by a…
A hundred years on, will there be another Great Depression?
The Observer reports: Such was the scale of the global market crash last week in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, the spectre of the 1929 Wall Street rout and the ensuing Great Depression of the 1930s has been raised. Comparisons no longer seem fanciful. The failure of the US and the UK to swing into action with a wide range of mitigation measures – despite the lessons of Italy’s slow response to the spread of Covid-19 – has heightened…
U.S. jobless rate may soar to 30%, Federal Reserve Bank’s Bullard Says
Bloomberg reports: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard predicted the U.S. unemployment rate may hit 30% in the second quarter because of shutdowns to combat the coronavirus, with an unprecedented 50% drop in gross domestic product. Bullard called for a powerful fiscal response to replace the $2.5 trillion in lost income that quarter to ensure a strong eventual U.S. recovery, adding the Fed would be poised to do more to ensure markets function during a period of…
The coronavirus could cause a social recession
Vivek H. Murthy and Alice T. Chen write: In early March, as cases of the novel coronavirus were increasing far more quickly than doctors in the United States could detect, the two of us knew we had to change how we and our two small children were living our lives. We canceled birthday parties, medical conferences, restaurant outings, and our children’s classes. We began greeting people without physical contact—not an easy task for two people who are inclined to hug…
Why the coronavirus has been so successful
Ed Yong writes: One of the few mercies during this crisis is that, by their nature, individual coronaviruses are easily destroyed. Each virus particle consists of a small set of genes, enclosed by a sphere of fatty lipid molecules, and because lipid shells are easily torn apart by soap, 20 seconds of thorough hand-washing can take one down. Lipid shells are also vulnerable to the elements; a recent study shows that the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, survives for no more than…
If we’re bailing out corporations, they should bail out the planet
Bill McKibben writes: One of the best chances to make some positive use of the coronavirus pandemic may be passing swiftly. As the economy craters, big corporations are in need of government assistance, and, on Capitol Hill, the sound of half a trillion dollars in relief money is bringing out the lobbyists. On Thursday afternoon, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, described the scene as a “trough” and mentioned a quote from a lobbyist in The Hill: “Everybody’s asking…