Tag: COVID

Covid Is Hitting Workers Differently Than the 2008 Financial Crisis

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/covid-is-hitting-workers-differently-than-the-financial-crisis

Excerpt:

In a new INET working paper, we examine inequality in employment outcomes across social groups during recessions. We take a comparative perspective, studying results from two recent and severe US recessions: the “Great Recession” linked with the global financial crisis beginning in late 2007 and the “lockdown” recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparing these two events presents an interesting case study to explore inequality in recessions.

The severity of a recession depends both on how much employment declines and the persistence of those declines. The primary job-months lost statistic in our analysis is designed to capture both of these dimensions. This measure simply adds up the difference between actual employment and pre-recession employment over the recession months. For example, if the pre-recession employment trend for a demographic group was flat and a person in that group lost a job in April but went back to work in July, that person’s experience would add three job-months lost to the total in their demographic group.

Author(s): Steven Fazzari, Ella Needler

Publication Date: 19 April 2021

Publication Site: Institute for New Economic Thinking

Measuring the COVID-19 Policy Response Around the World

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://freopp.org/measuring-the-covid-19-policy-response-around-the-world-2e37a7a97bc8

Graphic:

Excerpt:

In the U.S., 38% of all deaths from COVID-19 have occurred in nursing homes and assisted living facilities that house only 0.6% of the U.S. population. The failure to protect this population is not only a problem in the U.S., however; a survey of international countries found similar results.

Indeed, among 22 countries reporting care home fatalities, the U.S. sits squarely in the middle in terms of the share of fatalities occurring in care homes. Among WIHI countries, Canada (80%) and Australia (75%) had the highest concentration of fatalities in nursing homes, whereas Singapore (11%) and Hungary (23%) the lowest.

While Ireland reported a care home fatality share of 56%, its true share is closer to Canada’s, because Ireland, Finland, New Zealand, and Norway do not report deaths of care home residents who die outside of long-term care facilities. In other countries, roughly one-quarter of COVID-19 deaths of care home residents occur in hospitals and other external locations.

Author(s): Avik Roy

Publication Date: 5 April 2021

Publication Site: FREOPP

The COVID-19 Disaster That Did Not Happen in Texas

Mary Pat Campbell
The COVID-19 Disaster That Did Not Happen in Texas

Excerpt:

Most businesses in Texas had been allowed to operate at 75 percent of capacity since mid-October, when Abbott also allowed bars to reopen. It was implausible that removing the cap would have much of an impact on virus transmission, even in businesses that were frequently hitting the 75 percent limit.

While Abbott said Texans would no longer be legally required to cover their faces in public, he urged them to keep doing so, and many businesses continued to require masks. At the stores I visit in Dallas, there has been no noticeable change in policy or in customer compliance.

Conversely, face mask mandates and occupancy limits did not prevent COVID-19 surges in states such as Michigan, where the seven-day average of newly confirmed infections has risen more than fivefold since March 1; Maine, which has seen a nearly threefold increase; and Minnesota, where that number has more than doubled. Cases also rose during that period, although less dramatically, in other states with relatively strict COVID-19 rules, including Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington.

Florida, a state often criticized as lax, also has seen a significant increase in daily new cases: 34 percent since mid-March. But Florida, despite its relatively old population, still has a per capita COVID-19 death rate only a bit higher than California’s, even though the latter state’s restrictions have been much more sweeping and prolonged.

Author(s): Jacob Sullum

Publication Date: 21 April 2021

Publication Site: Reason

U.S. Lifts Pause, Will Restart J&J Vaccinations with Warning

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-should-restart-jj-vaccinations-with-warning-cdc-advisory-group-says/

Excerpt:

The United States will resume Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccinations after health officials lifted an 11-day pause on the shots at the recommendation of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel on Friday.

The pause in inoculations was triggered by concerns over six cases of a rare blood clot that occurred out of more than 7 million people who had received the vaccine in the U.S.

The panel voted 10 to 4 to recommend restarting the vaccinations, saying the benefits of the shot outweigh the rare risk of blood clots. However, the group suggested that the vaccine include a warning about the increased risk of the very rare but severe blood clots.

Author(s): Brittany Bernstein

Publication Date: 23 April 2021

Publication Site: National Review

India’s giant second wave is a disaster for it and the world

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/04/24/indias-giant-second-wave-is-a-disaster-for-it-and-the-world

Excerpt:

April 14th was a big day in India. Hindus and Sikhs gathered to mark the new year. Many Muslims celebrated the first day of Ramadan at late-night feasts with friends and family. In Haridwar, a temple town that this year hosts the Kumbh Mela, an intermittent Hindu festival that is the world’s biggest religious gathering, between 1m and 3m people shoved and jostled to take a ritual dip in the Ganges. And across the country, the number of people testing positive for covid-19 for the first time surpassed 200,000 in a single day. It has continued to surge since, reaching 315,000 just one week later—the highest daily figure in any country at any point during the pandemic. Deaths, too, are beginning to soar, and suspicions abound that the grisly official toll is itself a massive underestimate. Makeshift pyres are being constructed on pavements outside crematoriums to deal with the influx of bodies.

Publication Date: 24 April 2021

Publication Site: The Economist

Could covid lead to a lifetime of autoimmune disease?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/23/1023438/long-term-covid-antibodies-autoantibodies-immunity-cytokines-lupus/

Excerpt:

Ring’s autoantibody tests showed that in some patients—even some with mild cases of covid—the rogue immune proteins were marking blood cells for attack. Others were on the hunt for proteins associated with the heart and liver. Some patients appeared to have autoantibodies primed to attack the central nervous system and the brain. This was far more ominous than anything identified by the Rockefeller scientists. Ring’s findings seemed to suggest a potentially systemic problem; these patients seemed to be cranking out multiple varieties of new autoantibodies in response to covid, until the body appeared to be at war with itself.

What scared Ring the most was that autoantibodies have the potential to last a lifetime. This raised a series of chilling questions: What are the long-term consequences for these patients if these powerful assassins outlive the infection? How much destruction could they cause? And for how long?

Author(s): Adam Piore

Publication Date: 23 April 2021

Publication Site: MIT Tech Review

Pandemic Accelerates Social Risks to Investment Portfolios

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/pandemic-accelerates-social-risks-investment-portfolios/

Excerpt:

According to State Street Global Advisors (SSGA)’s annual stewardship report, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the trend of the increasing significance of social risks within environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk management.

“Insufficient data remains a challenge, but the ‘S’ is undeniably more important than ever to investors and other stakeholders,” according to the report. “As a result, companies are more focused on social issues, which will likely lead to a proliferation in data over the coming years.”

The firm said it is working with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and others to develop relevant key performance indicators and is refining its approach to social issues such as human capital management.

Author(s): Michael Katz

Publication Date: 29 March 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

MassMutual Sees Crisis Hitting Younger Adults Harder

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/03/29/massmutual-sees-crisis-hitting-younger-adults-harder/

Excerpt:

About 25% of the millennials and zoomers said they’re now having trouble with day-to-day expenses, compared with 19% of the GenXers and 9% of the boomers.

Twenty percent of the survey participants in the younger two age groups said they’ve had to adjust their lifestyles to keep costs down, compared with just 14% of the GenXers and 7% of the boomers.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 29 March 2021

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Pfizer Identifies Fake Covid-19 Shots Abroad as Criminals Exploit Vaccine Demand

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/pfizer-identifies-fake-covid-19-shots-abroad-as-criminals-exploit-vaccine-demand-11619006403

Excerpt:

Fake shots for the pandemic can be easy to distinguish from real ones, experts said, because legitimate ones can be found for now sold only to governments, making any shots for sale on the internet counterfeit and potentially harmful.

Police in China and South Africa last month seized thousands of doses of counterfeit Covid-19 vaccines in warehouses and manufacturing plants, arresting dozens of people, according to the international police agency Interpol. Mexico also is investigating a shipment of some 6,000 doses of purported Sputnik vaccine from Russia, which were seized from a private plane headed to Honduras in March.

The Russia Direct Investment Fund, which leads efforts to market the vaccine internationally, said an analysis of photographs of the seized batch “suggests that it is a fake.” The Mexican Attorney General’s Office said it was investigating the matter and declined to comment further. Authorities haven’t determined whether the vaccines are genuine.

For months, agents from the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, an investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, have been investigating fraud related to the Covid-19 pandemic globally, recovering $48 million of phony masks, personal protective equipment and other products. Last fall, investigators shifted their focus to include Covid-19 vaccines that were nearing potential clearance by regulators, beginning with online scams. They have removed 30 websites and seized 74 web domains, according to IPR Center officials.

Author(s): Jared S. Hopkins, José de Córdoba

Publication Date: 21 April 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

First Dose of Chinese Covid-19 Vaccine Offers Little Protection, Chile Learns

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-dose-of-chinese-covid-19-vaccine-offers-little-protection-chile-learns-11618775502

Excerpt:

Across Chile — which has mounted one of the world’s most rapid vaccination campaigns using the vaccine made by Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech Ltd. — health authorities are scrambling to deal with a surge in new infections and deaths.

More than 7.6 million people, half of Chile’s adult population, have received at least one vaccine dose, most made by the Chinese drugmaker, making the country a testing ground for a vaccine Beijing is supplying to countries across the developing world.

The problem, public-health officials say, was that people in general overestimated the effectiveness of the vaccine after only one of the two recommended doses and moved to ease up on pandemic-control restrictions too soon.

“With one dose, we know the protection is very weak,” said Claudia Cortes, an infectious-disease expert at the Santa Maria Clinic in Santiago, where about 10% of the Covid-19 patients at her hospital have received one shot. “It was not clearly explained that you need two doses — that you need to wait.”

Author(s): Ryan Dube

Publication Date: 18 April 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Worldwide COVID-19 death toll tops a staggering 3 million

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-brazil-caracas-portugal-india-ccad03475cfd5c846f11189a8bfd99c7?mc_cid=6daa5b724a&mc_eid=983bcf5922

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The global death toll from the coronavirus topped a staggering 3 million people Saturday amid repeated setbacks in the worldwide vaccination campaign and a deepening crisis in places such as Brazil, India and France.

The number of lives lost, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Kyiv, Ukraine; Caracas, Venezuela; or metropolitan Lisbon, Portugal. It is bigger than Chicago (2.7 million) and equivalent to Philadelphia and Dallas combined.

And the true number is believed to be significantly higher because of possible government concealment and the many cases overlooked in the early stages of the outbreak that began in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019.

Author(s): DAVID BILLER, MARIA CHENG, JOSHUA GOODMAN

Publication Date: 17 April 2021

Publication Site: Associated Press