Europe's recession will be even deeper than expected
lite.cnn.com
lite.cnn.com
But related to the article- We have multiple continents that are significantly curtailing their output due to the pandemic, and it will last for a while yet. I'm a little surprised to see that they think Europe will contract by only 8.3%. That might make sense if it were just Europe being affected by the pandemic but all of their trading partners are affected too. I don't think they've accounted for how the entire world going down at once is going to effect the EU as a multiplicative effect, not an additive effect.
https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/economic-per...
I dont know about similar lockdowns, but its reasonable to be concerned about a 2nd winter wave. We seen what happens once winter time comes in Brazil
I believe France and Spain were simply already much further on the wave than Germany when they enacted the lockdown. Without the lockdown, things would have probably been much worse.
Of course now we have ramped up our global testing capacity and German style tactical lockdowns are becoming more feasible, but they aren't a magic wand. Even Germany is forecast to suffer a 7% hit to it's economy through 2020 while the hit to Spain may be double that. So hopefully further lockdowns wont be as blanket and damaging as the first wave, but they will still have an impact.
If you think the lockdowns didn't have any effect on transmission of the virus, how do you explain the reduction in cases during the lockdowns?
The EU does have the worlds' largest internal market, though. I am not an economist, but would expect this dampens the effect of economies elsewhere breaking down.
So I selfishly ask you all to wash your hands and keep your distances, please.
"We conclude that wearing of face masks in public corresponds to the most effective means to prevent interhuman transmission"
The single most appropriate quote in these times (it comes from 4chan of all damn places) is, and always will be: "Your impending sense of doom is nothing but emotional residue - there is nothing wrong. Even when something is wrong, nothing is wrong. You deal with problems as they arise, no big deal."
By listening to those, who try to nudge us into panic mode, we neglect calm long-term strategies that would improve our lives over time.
Imho, this applies to every "immediate threats" that are regulary propagated by (social) media.
Now this new crisis will be 5 times worse, at least in terms of GDP. In 2008 the GDP went down around 2,5% now it'll go down more than 12%. Madness. Around 50.000 small businesses have already shut down and thousands more are barely surviving. And now the government is going to increase some taxes. Taxes which were supposed to affect the rich but guess what, they won't.
I'm pretty concerned about several people I know with small/family businesses.
1. The virus will subside in the summer like the flu does. Based on cases in the US and other areas (sans Europe) skyrocketing right now this is absolutely not true, forget a 2nd wave we have a growing mountain of a 1st wave hitting the US/Americas now.
2. Children are not really affected by covid. Israel had to shut its schools down after cases there were jumping, in addition kawasaki disease seems to be prevalent in a higher percentage of infected children than normally seen.
3. Antibodies will offer protection against covid-19 after being infected. This too has been disproved although the jury is not out yet. Studies have seen neutralizing antibodies stay in a persons system for about 2-3 months. There are other ways the body knows how to fight an infection so this is not definitive yet.[3]
[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/07/coronavirus...
[2] - https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
[3] - https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/06/chinese-...
The majority of bars and restaurants are back open in Germany.
Though I think the parent was talking about worldwide numbers which I have no idea about.
Also plenty of them have decided to just stay closed as the measures to put in place were too much for their usual business costs.
As for developing a novel type of vaccine? Developing any vaccine within an acceptable timeframe would be a minor miracle. To expect a breakthrough like that is plain delusional.
There are currently some 8-10 different kinds of vaccine for COVID-19 in development right now, and only two of those are based on virus fragments or weakened relatives.
It possible to induce temporary immunity, which would be adequate as a vaccine during pandemic, although annoying because we'd have to keep taking boosters. The history of this goes back >100 years, it is hardly "breakthrough" level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_induction_of_immuni...
Some R&D is towards gene-editing or other means of RNA/DNA transcription to cause the body to produce passive immunity antibodies continuously, rather than one-off infusion. That would be breakthrough level, but it's not so implausible that "we might as well give up and accept the inevitable now" and let millions die and millions more suffer the disabilities.
If these fail, regular antibody infusions or other therepeutics may be required. Not a vaccine, but similar in practical effect while being more expensive. We might as well give up if the US insurance system is in charge of that.
Times will be harder and harder for a lot of people.
Wow, the outlook for the next decade is fantastic.
Obviously I don't just worry that they feel this way, but also that they probably have a good reason for feeling this way, but either way it's worrying.
I've heard more than one news piece where they imply that Europe and Asia will be somehow spared from the economic fallout of putting their countries on lockdown for months on end. Then in the next piece they'll talk about how the US unemployment rate is off the charts and find a way to blame the Trump administration for it.
The economy is suffering because we slammed on the brakes in what (at least at the time) seemed like a prudent measure to avoid a worse fate. Now we have to pay the price for that. Choices have consequences.
Besides the fact that the Federal government doesn't actually have the authority to invoke a lockdown, and it was done on a state by state basis, yes the Federal government did advocate for it.
As to the benefits of the lockdowns as performed in various countries, I think it really remains to be seen how badly the US will be affected vs the rest of the world.
As of right now, yes, the US looks particularly bad in terms of the number of infections / deaths. But it's also an area the size of Europe with the vast majority of the deaths restricted to New England.
I wonder how things would look if you compared individual states to European countries. For example, here in Iowa, we're at I think 700 deaths and 30,000 confirmed cases. That doesn't seem too catastrophic to me.
- https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ ("Europe" is all Europe, not just the European Union. That's 747 million people.)
- https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
In that case, Iowa is doing very badly for cases/1M. I don't know if the comparison is fair, it might depend on who is tested.
For deaths/1M, it's somewhere around the European average.
Some European countries are very densely populated, like Belgium, the Netherlands, others less. Though much of Europe is as dense as New England.
This is interesting to me. I don't personally know anyone who has caught Coronavirus, much less been hospitalized or died from it.
If this is average or worse than average, it really makes me wonder why we've gotten so worked up about the re-opening. I assumed based on the way it's covered on the news that people were dropping like flies in other parts of the world.
At least between European countries, there have been quite different approaches to testing -- who gets tested varies depending on symptoms, perceived risk to themselves, risk to others, and availability of testing.
I don't personally know anyone here in Denmark that has tested positive. Two people I know know someone who has tested positive here. Many hotspots seem to be limited to quite small communities -- a single building, a single care home for the elderly, or a single food processing factory might have tens of cases (even deaths for the care home), so it's not so surprising that I'm unaware of anyone infected.
Preparation: not only failed to prepare, but dismantled agencies, fired/left empty key posts, de-funded key programs.
When first briefed on the threat, not only failed to start steps to stockpile key resources such as masks, activity reduced stockpiles by helping 3M sell overseas.
Reaction: Ignored, then actively downplayed the seriousness of the threat for months, silenced scientists, actively promoted false & sometimes deadly 'cures', actively turned mask-wearing from a simple & useful precaution to a partisan political statement, claimed science-based measures were opposition party ideas to tank the economy.
Actively impeded states from getting necessary gear - literally having federal agents seize shipments at loading docks, still unaccounted for =my state literally borrowed an NGL team airplane to fetch shipments of PPE from overseas so it could get to hospitals.
Ongoing: Deliberately rediced & slowed testing capability because the leader thinks that having more positive test results will hurt his reelection chances - would literally prefer people go undiagnosed & untreated than hurt his campaign.
Policy now seems to be turning ti "just live with it".
Nevermind the failure of leadership on the lockdown - every federal decision on this topic has, at best, focused improving on superficial appearance for the person occupying the president's chair, even if it actively undermines actual results. It is a rolling disaster, now exponentially growing again.
Plenty of people are still not able to work, and it is not like everyone can work from home.
Lots of aircraft still parked (~15k).