COVID Corruption News Articles
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Swedens decision to keep schools open during the pandemic resulted in no higher rate of infection among its schoolchildren than in neighboring Finland, where schools did temporarily close, their public health agencies said in a joint report. Sweden decided to forego a hard lockdown and keep most schools and businesses open throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, a divisive strategy that set it apart from most of Europe. Its Public Health Agency has maintained that the negative consequences of a shutdown on the economy and society outweigh the benefits, and says this also applies to schools. During the period of February 24 to June 14, there were 1,124 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among children in Sweden, around 0.05% of the total number of children aged 1-19. Finland recorded 584 cases in the same period, also equivalent to around 0.05%. In conclusion, (the) closure or not of schools had no measurable direct impact on the number of laboratory confirmed cases in school-aged children in Finland or Sweden, the agencies said in the report. Swedens death toll of 5,572, when compared relative to population size, far outstripped those of its Nordic neighbors, although it remains lower than in some European countries that locked down, such as Britain and Spain. State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the health agency, who has devised Swedens response to the epidemic, has said there is little evidence linking the death toll to the absence of a lockdown.
Note: Explore an excellent article on Sweden's underreported success in dealing with COVID-19. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The coronavirus pandemic has inspired a grassroots movement that is connecting people who need help with donors who can offer financial assistance. So far, contributors have passed $13 million through more than 100,000 matches. Shelly Tygielski came up with the idea that she named Pandemic of Love. The mindfulness teacher in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was looking for simple ways people in her community could take care of each other. "I posted the original video and the two links to signup forms on my social media feeds on March 14 and woke up the next morning and there were already 400 requests to get help and 500 to give help," Tygielski said. Tygielski shares her Pandemic of Love organization model with volunteers in other cities. These volunteers build teams to match applicants in their community and reach out to other communities when they need assistance. Maurico Martinez ... filled out the form to get help and received a text from an unknown number from California. "I got a text message from a lady named Simone in San Francisco, and she was willing to help me out, and 'what did I need, groceries, gasoline?' and could she send me some money?" Martinez told CNN. "She sent me a couple hundred dollars and I was so thankful and I wanted to pay her back. She said, 'No, this was Pandemic of Love,' and so then we started talking," Martinez recalled. "We started becoming friends ... and it was wonderful."
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Spot is focused on the asphalt path ahead, where a few joggers and bicyclists are out for some socially distanced sunshine. A cyclist in a brimmed hat rides past. Spot pipes up, not with a bark, but with a recorded message. Lets keep Singapore healthy, comes a womans voice, polite but firm. For your own safety, and for those around you, please stand at least one meter apart. Thank you. Spot [is] an agile, four-legged, arrestingly doglike robot that Singapore has deployed to help enforce distancing measures during the second month of a partial coronavirus lockdown. Developed by Boston Dynamics of Waltham, Mass., Spot is one of the worlds most advanced commercial robots, last seen opening doors, hauling a truck or dancing to Bruno Mars in a slate of mesmerizing promotional videos. Its two-week pilot in a park here is seen as a test of how machines and artificial intelligence could help reduce human contact in public spaces. Singapore officials said the goal of using Spot was reducing the manpower required for park patrols and minimizing physical contact among staff, volunteer safe distancing ambassadors and park visitors. Cameras installed on its body will help estimate the number of visitors in the park, but officials said they cannot recognize individuals. If the trial is successful, officials said they would consider deploying Spot ... at other parks. A second Spot robot has also been in use since last month to deliver medicines at an isolation facility housing thousands of COVID-19 patients.
Note: Click on the link above to see this robotic canine. Robot policing raises some serious concerns. CNBC has an article claiming as a result of the virus, we need social robots, robot avatars, and more. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The scientist whose advice prompted Boris Johnson to lock down Britain resigned from his Government advisory position on Tuesday. He broke social distancing rules to meet his married lover. Professor Neil Ferguson allowed the woman to visit him at home during the lockdown while lecturing the public on the need for strict social distancing in order to reduce the spread of coronavirus. The woman lives with her husband and their children in another house. The epidemiologist leads the team at Imperial College London that produced the computer-modelled research that led to the national lockdown, which claimed that more than 500,000 Britons would die without the measures. Prof Ferguson has frequently appeared in the media to support the lockdown and praised the "very intensive social distancing" measures. The revelation of the "illegal" trysts will infuriate millions of couples living apart and banned by the Government from meeting up during the lockdown, which is now in its seventh week. On at least two occasions, Antonia Staats, 38, travelled across London from her home in the south of the capital to spend time with the Government scientist, nicknamed Professor Lockdown. The 51-year-old had only just finished a two-week spell self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus. Police in England and Wales have handed out more than 9,000 fines during the lockdown equivalent to one every five minutes, while Scotland's chief medical officer, Dr Catherine Calderwood, was forced to resign last month after making two trips to her second home during the coronavirus lockdown.
Note: This article in the UK's Telegraph reveals that Ferguson's models in years past were "severely flawed," resulting in millions of unnecessary livestock deaths and billions in financial loses. This Time magazine article further states, "Ferguson and colleagues published a paper suggesting that even with some social distancing measures, the U.K. could see 250,000 coronavirus deaths and that the U.S. might have about 1 million deaths." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The nursing home industry has been devastated by the coronavirus, with outbreaks killing thousands of elderly residents. But the health crisis presents operators with a potential financial upside. Patients with COVID-19 could be worth more than four times what homes are able to charge for long-term residents with relatively mild health issues. Some patient advocates and industry experts fear the premium pay available for coronavirus patients — and a simultaneous easing of regulations around transfers — could tempt some home operators to move out low-paying residents to bring in more lucrative COVID-19 patients, despite the obvious health risks to residents and staff. “There are probably some unscrupulous operators who would jump at this,” said David Grabowski, a professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School. A new Medicare reimbursement system that went into effect last fall pays nursing homes substantially more for new patients — including those released from a hospital — particularly for the first few weeks. Under those guidelines, COVID-19 patients can bring in upward of $800 per day. By contrast, facilities collect as little as $200 per day for long-term patients with dementia. Nursing homes have always had a financial incentive to attract the short-term patients ... Grabowski said. But the health risks for existing residents and staff are so high with COVID-19, Grabowski said, “I’d be a little suspicious of a low-quality nursing home that’s jumping to the head of the line for this.”
Note: Another excellent article presents more important questions on how this might skew death statistics for the coronavirus. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency updated its assessment of the origin of the novel coronavirus to reflect that it may have been accidentally released from an infectious diseases lab. The report, dated March 27 and corroborated by two U.S. officials, reveals that U.S. intelligence revised its January assessment in which it "judged that the outbreak probably occurred naturally" to now include the possibility that the new coronavirus emerged "accidentally" due to "unsafe laboratory practices" in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Chinese officials at first insisted that the virus, SARS-CoV-2, could be caught only through direct contact with animals. But many of the early patients in Wuhan had no connection to the wild animal markets, which meant that the virus had already been spreading from person to person. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, not far from the animal markets in downtown Wuhan, houses the world's largest collection of coronaviruses from wild bats, including at least one virus that bears a resemblance to SARS-CoV-2. What's more, Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists have for the past five years been engaged in so-called "gain of function" (GOF) research, which is designed to enhance certain properties of viruses for the purpose of anticipating future pandemics. Gain-of-function techniques have been used to turn viruses into human pathogens capable of causing a global pandemic. Similar work ... has been carried out in dozens of labs throughout the world.
Note: If you want to understand the huge risk to humanity of “gain of function” research, read the entire article at the link above. Explore also eye-opening information on how the questions about the origin of the virus have been manipulated. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Sweden's strategy to keep large parts of society open is widely backed by the public. It has been devised by scientists and backed by government. There is no lockdown here. On the face of it little has shut down. But data suggests the vast majority of the population have taken to voluntary social distancing, which is the crux of Sweden's strategy to slow the spread of the virus. Usage of public transport has dropped significantly [and] large numbers are working from home. The government has also banned gatherings of more than 50 people and visits to elderly care homes. Around 9 in 10 Swedes say they keep at least a metre away from people at least some of the time. In Stockholm, the epicentre of the virus so far, cases have largely plateaued, although there was a spike at the end of this week, put down partly to increased testing. There is still space in intensive care units and a new field hospital at a former conference venue is yet to be used. The Swedish Public Health Agency has maintained high approval ratings throughout the pandemic. Sweden's decision to leave larger parts of society open than most of Europe came after [chief epidemiologist] Dr Tegnell's team used simulations which anticipated a more limited impact of the virus in relation to population size than those made by other scientists. A core aim was to introduce less stringent social distancing measures that could be maintained over a long period of time. Schools for under-16s have remained open to enable parents to keep working. Unlike in some countries, Sweden's statistics do include elderly care home residents, who account for around 50% of all deaths. Dr Tegnell admits that is a major concern. History will judge which countries got it right.
Note: This excellent graph of deaths per million for coronavirus among 12 major countries shows that Sweden is in the middle of the pack, where if lockdown made a big difference, we would expect it to be at or near the top of the group. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
It has long been assumed by medical experts that the United States is drastically underreporting the actual number of COVID-19 infections across the country due to limited testing and a high number of asymptomatic cases. Large-scale antibody tests are expected to give researchers an idea of just how widespread the outbreak is, and preliminary results from the first such test in Santa Clara County suggest we are underreporting cases by at least a factor of 50. In early April, Stanford University researchers conducted an antibody test of 3,300 residents in the county. Researchers hoped to put together a sample that was representative of the county's population by selecting individuals based on their age, race, gender and zip code to extrapolate study results to the larger community. The results of the study are preliminary and not peer-reviewed, but the general takeaways would seem to strongly contribute to the notion that there have been a large number of COVID-19 cases that went undetected. Researchers estimate that... the true number of total cases in early April both active and recovered ranges between 48,000 and 81,000. The county had reported just under 1,000 cases at the time the study was conducted, which would mean cases are being underreported by a factor of 50 to 85. If the study's numbers are accurate, the true mortality and hospitalization rates of COVID-19 are both substantially lower than current estimates, and due to lag between infection and death, researchers project a true mortality rate between .12 and .20.
Note: See a BMJ article titled "Covid-19: four fifths of cases are asymptomatic." The World Health Organizations in March was claiming a mortality rate of 2 to 4%, which is about 20 times the amount found in this study. Could this be an example of fear mongering? For our best articles filled with reliable, verifiable information on the coronavirus, see this article and this one. And for the critical future implications of all this, explore this penetrating essay. Several more excellent essays can be found here. Key major media news articles on the pandemic are available here.
The Covid-19 pandemic is now giving Russian authorities an opportunity to test new powers and technology, and the country's privacy and free-speech advocates worry the government is building sweeping new surveillance capabilities. Perhaps the most well-publicized tech tool in Russia's arsenal for fighting coronavirus is Moscow's massive facial-recognition system. Rolled out earlier this year, the surveillance system had originally prompted an unusual public backlash, with privacy advocates filing lawsuits over unlawful surveillance. Coronavirus, however, has given an unexpected public-relations boost to the system. Last week, Moscow police claimed to have caught and fined 200 people who violated quarantine and self-isolation using facial recognition and a 170,000-camera system. Some of the alleged violators who were fined had been outside for less than half a minute before they were picked up by a camera. And then there's the use of geolocation to track coronavirus carriers. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin earlier this week ordered Russia's Ministry of Communications to roll out a tracking system based on "the geolocation data from the mobile providers for a specific person" by the end of this week. According to a description in the government decree, information gathered under the tracking system will be used to send texts to those who have come into contact with a coronavirus carrier, and to notify regional authorities so they can put individuals into quarantine.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus pandemic and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
Like the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic is a crisis of such magnitude that it threatens to change the world in which we live, with ramifications for how leaders govern. Governments are locking down cities with the help of the army, mapping population flows via smartphones and jailing or sequestering quarantine breakers using banks of CCTV and facial recognition cameras backed by artificial intelligence. The restrictions are unprecedented in peacetime and made possible only by rapid advances in technology. And while citizens across the globe may be willing to sacrifice civil liberties temporarily, history shows that emergency powers can be hard to relinquish. A primary concern is that if the public gives governments new surveillance powers to contain Covid-19, then governments will keep these powers after the public health crisis ends, said Adam Schwartz ... at the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation. Nearly two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government still uses many of the surveillance technologies it developed in the immediate wake. In part, the Chinese Communist Partys containment measures at the virus epicenter in Wuhan set the tone, with what initially seemed shocking steps to isolate the infected being subsequently adopted in countries with no comparable history of Chinas state controls. For Gu Su ... at Nanjing University, Chinas political culture made its people more amenable to the draconian measures.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
Fear of Covid-19 is based on its high estimated case fatality rate2% to 4% ... according to the World Health Organization and others. We believe that estimate is deeply flawed. Theres little evidence to confirm that premiseand projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high. The true fatality rate is the portion of those infected who die, not the deaths from identified positive cases. The latter rate is misleading because of selection bias in testing. The degree of bias ... could make the difference between an epidemic that kills 20,000 and one that kills two million [in the U.S.]. First, the test used to identify cases doesnt catch people who were infected and recovered. Second, testing rates were woefully low for a long time and typically reserved for the severely ill. Together, these facts imply that the confirmed cases are likely orders of magnitude less than the true number of infections. Epidemiological modelers havent adequately adapted their estimates to account for these factors. This does not make Covid-19 a nonissue. The daily reports from Italy and across the U.S. show real struggles and overwhelmed health systems. But a 20,000- or 40,000-death epidemic is a far less severe problem than one that kills two million. Given the enormous consequences of decisions around Covid-19 response, getting clear data to guide decisions now is critical. We dont know the true infection rate in the U.S. If were right about the limited scale of the epidemic, then measures focused on older populations and hospitals are sensible. A universal quarantine may not be worth the costs it imposes on the economy, community and individual mental and physical health.
Note: Authors Dr. Bendavid and Dr. Bhattacharya are professors of medicine at Stanford. The Wall Street Journal charges non-subscribers to read more than the first two paragraphs of this article. You may find it well worth your time to read the entire article free on this webpage. Explore also this excellent article the covers key, vitally important aspects of this pandemic that few have considered. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus pandemic from reliable major media sources.
When this public health crisis first morphed into a financial one as well, the Federal Reserve sprang into action, pouring trillions of dollars into the financial system in less than a week; providing short-term loans to banks; slashing a key interest rate virtually to zero; announcing that the Fed would begin buying $700 billion worth of U.S. government bonds and mortgage-backed securities. The Fed gave itself the authority to purchase up to $1 trillion in commercial paper to support the flow of credit. An eight-second video from 2009 [shows] Ben Bernanke, the Fed chair at the time, explaining how the central bank comes up with the money to pull off these trillion-dollar maneuvers. “It’s not tax money,” Mr. Bernanke explained on “60 Minutes.” “We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.” Heads exploded. Many people replying to the tweet complained that we’re ... coming to the rescue of Wall Street instead of Main Street. “If the Fed can do this for the banks,” they wondered, “why can’t we find the money to pay for programs that would improve life for everyday Americans?” When called upon, the same computer that works for large banks is there for Main Street as well. But the Federal Reserve needs specific instructions before typing up dollars for the rest of us. Those instructions come in the form of legislation: When a bill becomes a law, the government is, in essence, telling the Fed how many dollars it is ordering up.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on banking corruption and the coronavirus pandemic from reliable major media sources.
Like many paediatricians, Dani Dumitriu braced herself for the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus when it first surged in her wards. She was relieved when most newborn babies at her hospital who had been exposed to COVID-19 seemed to do just fine. But hints of a more subtle and insidious trend followed close behind. Dumitriu and her team ... had more than two years of data on infant development — since late 2017, they had been analysing the communication and motor skills of babies up to six months old. Dumitriu thought it would be interesting to compare the results from babies born before and during the pandemic. The infants born during the pandemic scored lower, on average, on tests of gross motor, fine motor and communication skills compared with those born before it. It didn’t matter whether their birth parent had been infected with the virus or not; there seemed to be something about the environment of the pandemic itself. Lockdowns ... have isolated many young families, robbing them of playtime and social interactions. Stressed out and stretched thin, many carers also haven’t been able to provide the one-to-one time that babies and toddlers need. Worryingly, [biophysicist Sean] Deoni has found that the longer the pandemic has continued, the more deficits children have accumulated. “The magnitude is massive — it’s just astonishing,” Deoni says of the findings, which are now under revision in JAMA Pediatrics.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and health from reliable major media sources.
On Tuesday, Republicans on [a] House Committee ... released a letter that paints a damning picture of U.S. government officials wrestling with whether the novel coronavirus may have leaked out of a lab they were funding ... and then keeping the discussion from spilling out into public view. The newly released notes ... first obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by BuzzFeed News and the The Washington Post ... suggest that the scientists Fauci consulted initially considered that possibility to be much more serious than the paper let on. As they discussed what to present to the public, the scientists determined that questions of potential lab origin might prove more trouble than they’re worth. Virologists Michael Farzan and Robert Garry told Fauci ... the virus might have leaked from the Wuhan lab. The major feedback [from a] Feb 1 teleconference was: 1. Don’t try to write a paper at all. 2. If you do write it, don’t mention a lab origin as that will just add fuel to the conspiracists. Jeremy Farrar, an infectious disease expert ... sent around notes, including to Fauci and Collins, summarizing what some of the scientists had said. Farzan ... “is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time explaining that as an event outside the lab." [One virologist commented that] "further debate about such accusations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Some 85 percent of Portugal’s population is fully vaccinated. Portugal’s feat has turned the country into a cutting-edge pandemic laboratory — a place where otherwise-hypothetical questions about the coronavirus endgame can begin to play out. Chief among them is how fully a nation can bring the virus under control when vaccination rates are about as high as they can go. Portugal’s experience is ... providing a note of caution: a reminder that 1½ years into this pandemic, the current tools of science still might not be enough. Herd immunity remains elusive. “We have achieved a good result, but it’s not the solution or miracle one would think,” Portugal’s health minister, Marta Temido, said in an interview. In Portugal, seniors are vaccinated at a level verging on the statistically impossible: Official data puts the rate at 100 percent. But many were also vaccinated more than half a year ago — and studies from around the world, from the United States to Israel, have warned of a drop in protection by that point. One of the biggest warnings of all has come from a science institute in Lisbon, where researchers have been measuring antibody levels in several thousand people — including about 500 in Portuguese nursing homes. Shortly after those nursing home residents were vaccinated, all with the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, 95 percent developed antibodies, the researchers found. But this summer ... more than one-third of the residents had lost antibodies entirely.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Israel has among the world’s highest levels of vaccination for COVID-19, with 78% of those 12 and older fully vaccinated. Yet the country is now logging one of the world’s highest infection rates, with nearly 650 new cases daily per million people. More than half are in fully vaccinated people. The effects of waning immunity may be beginning to show. A preprint published last month by physician Tal Patalon and colleagues ... found that protection from COVID-19 infection during June and July dropped in proportion to the length of time since an individual was vaccinated. People vaccinated in January had a 2.26 times greater risk for a breakthrough infection than those vaccinated in April. At the same time, cases in the country, which were scarcely registering at the start of summer, have been doubling every week to 10 days since then, with the Delta variant responsible for most of them. What is clear is that “breakthrough” cases are not the rare events the term implies. As of 15 August, 514 Israelis were hospitalized with severe or critical COVID-19, a 31% increase from just 4 days earlier. Of the 514, 59% were fully vaccinated. To try to tame the surge, Israel has turned to booster shots. As of Monday, nearly 1 million Israelis had received a third dose. Yet boosters are unlikely to tame a Delta surge on their own, says Dvir Aran, a biomedical data scientist at Technion. Aran’s message for the United States and other wealthier nations considering boosters is stark: “Do not think that the boosters are the solution.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
It was Jan. 31, 2020, and a leading infectious disease expert, Kristian Andersen, had been examining the genetic characteristics of the newly emerging SARS-CoV virus. “Some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” Andersen wrote in an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci, noting that he and other scientists “all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.” Just four days later, Andersen gave feedback in advance of a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine letter that was referenced in the prestigious Lancet medical journal to argue against the idea that the virus had been engineered and brand it a conspiracy theory. In his email, Andersen called the ideas that the virus was engineered “crackpot theories,” writing, “engineering can mean many things and could be done for basic research or nefarious reasons, but the data conclusively show that neither was done.” That initial email ... was released to The Washington Post and BuzzFeed this week under the Freedom of Information Act. The U.S. government has since accused China of withholding significant information. And U.S. intelligence officials ... say the possibility that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan is one they have not ruled out, and continue to investigate. A fact sheet put out by the State Department at the end of the Trump administration in January — which was vetted by intelligence agencies and has not been disavowed by the Biden administration — says there is circumstantial evidence for a lab leak.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Easy money pouring out of central banks is a key driver behind this surge in fortunes, and the resulting wealth inequality. In recent decades, as the global population of billionaires rose more than fivefold and the largest fortunes rocketed past $100 billion, I started tracking this wealth. Rising inequality was threatening to provoke popular backlashes against capitalism itself. The pandemic has reinforced this trend. As the virus spread, central banks injected $9 trillion into economies worldwide, aiming to keep growth alive. Much of that stimulus went into financial markets, and from there into the net worth of the ultra-rich. The total wealth of billionaires worldwide rose by $5 trillion to $13 trillion in 12 months, the most dramatic surge ever registered on the annual list compiled by Forbes magazine. The billionaire population boomed as well. On the 2021 Forbes list, which runs to April 6, their numbers rose nearly 700 to more than 2,700. The biggest surge came in China, which added 238 billionaires — one every 36 hours — for a total of 626. Next came the US, which added 110 for a total of 724. India added 38 for a total of 140, and has surpassed Russia for the third largest population of billionaires in the world. The fundamental driver of the market and thus the billionaire boom: easy money pouring out of central banks. Wealth inequality is likely to continue widening until the monetary spigots are turned off.
Note: If you can’t access this article on the FT website, go to this webpage. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and income inequality from reliable major media sources.
As other countries face renewed outbreaks, Swedens latest Covid-19 figures suggest its rapidly bringing the virus under control. That Sweden has come down to these levels is very promising, state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told reporters in Stockholm on Tuesday. The Health Agency of Sweden says that since hitting a peak in late June, the infection rate has fallen sharply. Thats amid an increase in testing over the period. The curves are going down and the curves for the seriously ill are beginning to approach zero, Tegnell said. The development follows months of controversy over Swedens decision to avoid a full lockdown. The unusual strategy coincided with a much higher Covid-19 mortality rate than elsewhere in the Nordic region. On Tuesday, Sweden reported two new deaths, bringing the total to 5,702. Tegnell also broached the subject of face masks. With numbers diminishing very quickly in Sweden, we see no point in wearing a face mask in Sweden, not even on public transport, he said. Tegnell has consistently argued that Swedens approach is more sustainable than the sudden lockdowns imposed elsewhere. With the risk that Covid-19 might be around for years, he says completely shutting down society isnt a long-term option. Meanwhile, many countries that thought theyd brought the virus under control are now seeing second waves. Tegnell called those developments worrying. The positive trend is reversing, with an increase in the number of cases in Spain, Romania and Belgium, among others, he said.
Note: In the 7 days ending Aug. 14th, Sweden had a total of 14 deaths from COVID-19 and the numbers continue to decline. By comparison, California with four times the population had 949 deaths. Why isn't the media talking more about Sweden's success without any lockdown? The Dutch government is also not advising the public to wear masks, claiming their effectiveness has not been proven. Why is the media overall so biased against Sweden? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The world economy is expected to contract by 5.2 percent this year - the worst recession in 80 years - but the sheer number of countries suffering economic losses means the scale of the downturn is worse than any recession in 150 years, the World Bank said in its latest Global Economic Prospects report. The depth of the crisis will drive 70 to 100 [million] people into extreme poverty - worse than the prior estimate of 60 million. Economists have been struggling to measure the impact of the crisis they have likened to a global natural disaster, but the sheer size of the impact across so many sectors and countries has made it hard to calculate, and made predictions about any recovery highly uncertain. Under the worst-case scenario, the global recession could mean a contraction of eight percent, according to the report. There remain some "exceptionally high" risks to the outlook, particularly if the current outbreaks linger or rebound, causing authorities to re-impose restrictions that could make the downturn as bad as eight percent. "Disruptions to activity would weaken businesses' ability to remain in operation and service their debt," the report cautioned. That, in turn, could raise interest rates for higher-risk borrowers and, "With debt levels already at historic highs, this could lead to cascading defaults and financial crises across many economies." But even if the 4.2 percent global recovery projected for 2021 materializes, "In many countries, deep recessions triggered by COVID-19 will likely weigh on potential output for years to come."
Note: What this article fails to mention is that it is not the pandemic that is driving all this, but rather the questionable lockdown policies developed to address the pandemic. Sweden, which has never instituted a lockdown, did not spiral out of control and has been less impacted economically. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and income inequality from reliable major media sources.
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