Mobility data show modest pace of economic recovery in the US

Mobility data show modest pace of economic recovery in the US /  UK excess deaths during pandemic reach 62,000

Mobility data show modest pace of economic recovery in the US 

The plunge in economic activity in the US appears to be coming to an end, according to data tracking mobility, but the pace of recovery looks to only be modest.

 Mobility data from Apple and Google "continue to show a sizable pickup in driving, walking and park visits", analysts at TD Securities observe. However, data that are more indicative of economic activity show only a "more modest pickup". 

This includes the "retail and recreation" category, which covers the likes of restaurants, shopping centres, theme parks, cinemas, libraries, museums and workplaces. TD also points out that applications for new businesses and mortgages have jumped. 

Consumer confidence has steadied after a steep tumble and at a level that is higher than during the financial crisis even though the current unemployment rate is much higher than it was back then.

UK excess deaths during pandemic reach 62,000

England and Wales recorded another high level of coronavirus-related deaths in the week ending May 22, taking the total excess deaths in the UK to almost 62,000 since the outbreak of the pandemic.

The Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday that 12,288 deaths were registered in that week in England and Wales, 24 per cent more than normal for a week in mid-May, adding another 2,348 to the UK total excess deaths in the 10 weeks since the total rose above the past five-year average.


When data for Scotland and Northern Ireland are included, it means 61,920 more people than normal have died across the UK in the period, a rate of 929 per million, which is again the highest rate among countries with comparable data.

America has no real public health system – coronavirus has a clear run

As the coronavirus outbreak in the US follows the same grim exponential growth path first displayed in Wuhan, China, before herculean measures were put in place to slow its spread there, America is waking up to the fact that it has almost no public capacity to deal with it.

Instead of a public health system, we have a private for-profit system for individuals lucky enough to afford it and a rickety social insurance system for people fortunate enough to have a full-time job.

At their best, both systems respond to the needs of individuals rather than the needs of the public as a whole. In America, the word “public” – as in public health, public education or public welfare – means a sum total of individual needs, not the common good.

America has no real public health system 

Contrast this with America’s financial system. The Federal Reserve concerns itself with the health of financial markets as a whole. Late last week the Fed made $1.5tn available to banks, at the slightest hint of difficulties making trades. No one batted an eye.

When it comes to the health of the nation as a whole, money like this isn’t available. And there are no institutions analogous to the Fed with responsibility for overseeing and managing the public’s health – able to whip out a giant checkbook at a moment’s notice to prevent human, rather than financial, devastation.

Even if a test for the Covid-19 virus had been developed and approved in time, no institutions are in place to administer it to tens of millions of Americans free of charge. Local and state health departments are already bare bones, having lost nearly a quarter of their workforce since 2008, according to the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

Healthcare in America is delivered mainly by private for-profit corporations which, unlike financial institutions, are not required to maintain reserve capacity. As a result, the nation’s supply of ventilators isn’t nearly large enough to care for projected numbers of critically ill coronavirus victims unable to breathe for themselves. Its 45,000 intensive care unit beds fall woefully short of the 2.9 million likely to be needed.

The Fed can close banks to quarantine financial crises but the US can’t close workplaces because the nation’s social insurance system depends on people going to work.

Almost 30% of American workers have no paid sick leave from their employers, including 70% of low-income workers earning less than $10.49 an hour. Vast numbers of self-employed workers cannot afford sick leave. Friday’s deal between House Democrats and the White House won’t have much effect because it exempts large employers and offers waivers to smaller ones.

Most jobless Americans don’t qualify for unemployment insurance because they haven’t worked long enough in a steady job and the ad-hoc deal doesn’t alter this. Meanwhile, more than 30 million Americans have no health insurance. Eligibility for Medicaid, food stamps and other public assistance is now linked to having or actively looking for work.

It’s hard to close public schools because most working parents cannot afford childcare. Many poor children rely on school lunches for their only square meal a day. In Los Angeles, about 80% of students qualify for free or reduced lunches and just under 20,000 are homeless at some point during the school year.

There is no public health system in the US, in short, because the richest nation in the world has no capacity to protect the public as a whole, apart from national defense. Ad-hoc remedies such as House Democrats and the White House fashioned on Friday are better than nothing, but they don’t come close to filling this void.

Is The Coronavirus Really Losing Potency In Italy?

There is a claim from a doctor in Italy that the Covid-19 coronavirus may be losing potency in Italy. But as most horror movies have probably taught you, don’t make any assumptions that a threat has subsided until you are really, positively, absolutely sure that it has.

This Reuters video covers this claim by Dr. Alberto Zangrillo, who is head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, Italy

As a Reuters report indicated, Zangrillo said that "in reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy," and that "the swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago." Hmm, “clinically no longer exists,” is a pretty bold claim. Whenever you claim that something no longer exists whether it’s body odor, a killer in a horror movie, or a virus, you have got to be sure, really sure. Did Zangrillo check everyone in Italy for symptoms or the virus to confirm this statement? That would have required a lot of swabs. 

The responses from the WHO’s experts to Zangrillo’s comments were akin to saying “what?” Just listen to what Mike Ryan, MD, MPH, Executive Director of the World Health Organization's (WHO’s) Health Emergencies Programme said in a press conference today: 

As you can see, Ryan warned that “we need to be exceptionally careful that we are not creating a sense that all of a sudden the virus has decided to be less pathogenic. That is not the case at all.” He emphasized that the Covid-19 coronavirus is still a “killer virus.”

As Kate Kelland and Emilio Parodi reported for Reuters, WHO Technical Lead and epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove further affirmed the following about the sever acute respiratory syndrome coroonavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2), “In terms of transmissibility, that has not changed, in terms of severity, that has not changed.”

Viruses like the Covid-19 coronavirus aren’t like Viagra. They don’t just automatically lose potency over time. Yes, there is the possibility that less dangerous versions of the virus could emerge and eventually become more prevalent than the initial version. There is also the “uh-oh” opposite possibility that more dangerous versions may emerge. Both of these possibilities don’t tend to happen overnight, though.

Moreover, the amount of virus found on testing swabs is not necessarily a measure of the potency of a virus. It is simply a measure of what’s in the sample that you got from sticking a cotton swab up a person’s nose or to the back of his or her throat. If you really want to check whether the circulating virus has fundamentally changed, you’ve got to back it up with other types of studies such as determining whether the genetic make-up of the virus and the clinical outcomes of infected patients with similar risk factors have really changed.

Could moving closer to the Summer potentially lead to decreased virus activity? Sure, if transmission of the Covid-19 coronavirus shows the same type of seasonal fluctuation as the flu virus does. I covered this possibility previously for Forbes. However, it’s still not clear whether this will indeed be the case. After all, comparing the SARS-CoV2 and the flu virus would be like comparing apples and oranges, really bad apples with stinky oranges.

Nonetheless, before making any bold statements about the virus losing potency, as they say with science and whisky, you’ve got to have enough proof. That type of proof would only come after extensive testing and surveillance has been done over time and over many locations. Testing in one hospital or even several hospitals over a ten day period is not going to tell you the whole story. That would be like going to a Pizza Hut and using your visit there to make conclusions about pizza in general. Remember not all pizza has cheese stuffed into its crust.

Similarly, the amount of virus that’s been found on testing swabs (which is the viral load that Zangrillo was referring to) from patients in a hospital or even a group of hospitals does not necessarily represent what is happening throughout the country. It only represents what may be occurring among those swabs from those patients who happen to have been at those hospitals at those times. That’s a lot of those. Plus, Zangrillo hasn’t yet offered any concrete data that can be peer-reviewed by other scientists to back up his claim.

Instead, you’ve got to get a broad enough sample over an extended period of time to really understand what’s happening across the country and make sure that it’s not just a momentary dip. You can’t just look at what’s under your nose or up your patients’ noses. You have to look at many other hospitals and clinics. Furthermore, an extended period of time means more than 10 days, which is still less than what may be the two- to 14-day incubation period for the virus. For example, what if the virus is currently spreading in locations where testing is not occurring? What if the virus is more prevalent among disadvantaged or more socially isolated people who may not have ready access to health care and thus won’t necessarily be seen by doctors?

Keep in mind that Italy did shut things down for a while with aggressive social distancing measures. So all of those efforts could have decreased transmission of the virus for at least a bit. Will the re-opening of society in Italy lead to a bad sequel to what was a bad first installment, sort of like the movie Grown Ups 2 after the first Grown Ups movie? Could the sequel come in the Fall? It’s still too early to tell.

The situation in Italy does bear watching. More concrete and peer-reviewed scientific evidence is needed before concluding anything new about the potency of the virus. Even if some changes were to happen in Italy, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that the same will eventually apply elsewhere. What happens in Italy could just stay in Italy.

why a coronavirus treatment could be more beneficial than a vaccine

Developing an effective coronavirus treatment could be the key to fighting the disease, experts say

The race to develop a coronavirus treatment

• There is no approved therapy for Covid-19.
• Coming up with an effective treatment can serve as a bridge to a vaccine that experts expect will likely take 12 to 18 months to develop.
• Repurposed drugs and convalescent plasma therapy have recently come into the spotlight as potential treatments.

Some reports predict that close to half the global population will eventually contract the coronavirus. While aggressive testing to contain the spread of the disease remains a top priority, scientists and researchers believe that an effective treatment can serve as a bridge while experts develop a vaccine.

For now, regulators are heavily leaning toward repurposing existing medications, which will both save time and guarantee a steady supply. The Food and Drug Administration is looking into drugs that are normally used to treat other conditions, such as HIV, malaria, Ebola and rheumatoid arthritis, as possible candidates to treat Covid-19.

It’s a process that will prove to be “a very, very difficult business,” according to Rena Conti, an associate markets professor at Boston University. “Four out of five drugs fail in developing. And that’s true for cancer and for other types of significant unmet needs that we have now. And that exact same failure rate should be expected in developing a treatment for Covid-19.”

Other therapeutic treatments such as convalescent plasma therapy, which uses blood from recovered patients in coronaviruse to treat those in critical condition, have recently come into the spotlight after the FDA approved its use on March 24. It’s a treatment that’s been around for over 100 years, most notably to combat other diseases such as the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. However, the challenge lies in proving its efficacy and securing enough plasma to treat those who are in need.

Scientists remain hopeful, given the number of treatments and drugs that are under consideration. As of April 19, the FDA revealed that 72 treatments are in active trials and 211 treatments are in the planning stages. “I think it is likely that we will be able to identify a therapy that has some success within a period of several months to maybe a year,” said Andrew D. Badley, an infectious disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) health information and advice

Overview-Coronavirus (COVID-19)

COVID-19 is a new illness that can affect your lungs and airways.It's caused by a virus called coronavirus.

Stay at home if you have coronavirus symptoms

Stay at home if you have either:

• a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
• a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)

Do not go to a GP surgery, pharmacy or hospital.

How long to stay at home

• if you have symptoms of coronavirus, you'll need to stay at home for 7 days
• if you live with someone who has symptoms, you'll need to stay at home for 14 days from the day the first person in the home started having symptoms

If you live with someone who is 70 or over, has a long-term condition, is pregnant or has a weakened immune system, try to find somewhere else for them to stay for 14 days.

If you have to stay at home together, try to keep away from each other as much as possible.

Staying at home can help stop coronavirus spreading

You'll need to stay at home if you have symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19) or live with someone who does.

Staying at home means you should:

• not go to work, school or public areas
• not use public transport or taxis
• not have visitors, such as friends and family, in your home
• not go out to buy food or collect medicine – order them by phone or online, or ask someone else to drop them off at your home

You can use your garden, if you have one. You can also leave the house to exercise – but stay at least 2 metres away from other people.

How long to stay at home

If you have symptoms

If you have symptoms of coronavirus, you'll need to stay at home for 7 days.

After 7 days:

• if you do not have a high temperature, you do not need to stay at home
• if you still have a high temperature, stay at home until your temperature returns to normal

You do not need to stay at home if you just have a cough after 7 days. A cough can last for several weeks after the infection has gone.

If you live with someone who has symptoms

If you live with someone who has symptoms, you'll need to stay at home for 14 days from the day their symptoms started. This is because it can take 14 days for symptoms to appear.

If more than 1 person at home has symptoms, stay at home for 14 days from the day the first person started having symptoms.

If you get symptoms, stay at home for 7 days from when your symptoms start, even if it means you're at home for longer than 14 days.

If you do not get symptoms, you can stop staying at home after 14 days.

If you have symptoms and live with a vulnerable person

If you live with someone who is 70 or over, has a long-term condition, is pregnant or has a weakened immune system, try to arrange for them to stay with friends or family for 14 days.

If you have to stay at home together, try to keep away from each other as much as possible.

Reducing the spread of infection in your home

While you're staying at home, you should:

• wash your hands with soap and water often, for at least 20 seconds
• use hand sanitiser gel if soap and water are not available
• cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when you cough or sneeze
• put used tissues in the bin straight away and wash your hands afterwards
• clean objects and surfaces you touch often (like door handles, kettles and phones) using your regular cleaning products

How to do your cleaning and laundry

Use your usual household products, such as detergents and bleach, when you clean your home.

Put used tissues and disposable cleaning cloths in rubbish bags. Then put the bag into a second bag and tie it securely. Wait 3 days before putting it in your outside bin.

Dispose of other household waste as normal.

Wash your laundry in the washing machine in the usual way. Laundry that has been in contact with an ill person can be washed with other people's items. Do not shake dirty laundry, as this may spread the virus in the air.

If you do not have a washing machine, wait for 3 days after your stay at home has ended before taking your laundry to a launderette.

Looking after your health and wellbeing

To help yourself stay well while you're at home:

• drink plenty of water to stay hydrated – drink enough so your pee is pale and clear
• take paracetamol to help ease your symptoms
• stay in touch with family and friends over the phone or on social media, to help you avoid feeling low or lonely
• try to keep yourself busy – you could try activities like cooking, reading, online learning and watching films
• do light exercise, if you feel well enough to

What to do if you need medical help if you have to stay at home

If you get symptoms not related to coronavirus and need medical help:

• do not go to a GP surgery, pharmacy or hospita

How coronavirus is spread

Because it's a new illness, we do not know exactly how coronavirus spreads from person to person.

Similar viruses are spread in cough droplets.

It's very unlikely it can be spread through things like packages or food

Travel advice

There are some countries and areas where there's a higher chance of coming into contact with someone with coronavirus.

Treatment for coronavirus

There is currently no specific treatment for coronavirus.

Antibiotics do not help, as they do not work against viruses.

Treatment aims to relieve the symptoms while your body fights the illness.

You'll need to stay in isolation, away from other people, until you have recovered.

Reducing the spread of infection in your home

While you're staying at home, you should:

• wash your hands with soap and water often, for at least 20 seconds
• use hand sanitiser gel if soap and water are not available
• cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when you cough or sneeze
• put used tissues in the bin straight away and wash your hands afterwards
• clean objects and surfaces you touch often (like door handles, kettles and phones) using your regular cleaning products

How to do your cleaning and laundry

Use your usual household products, such as detergents and bleach, when you clean your home.

Put used tissues and disposable cleaning cloths in rubbish bags. Then put the bag into a second bag and tie it securely. Wait 3 days before putting it in your outside bin.

Dispose of other household waste as normal.

Wash your laundry in the washing machine in the usual way. Laundry that has been in contact with an ill person can be washed with other people's items. Do not shake dirty laundry, as this may spread the virus in the air.

If you do not have a washing machine, wait for 3 days after your stay at home has ended before taking your laundry to a launderette.

Looking after your health and wellbeing

To help yourself stay well while you're at home:

• drink plenty of water to stay hydrated – drink enough so your pee is pale and clear
• take paracetamol to help ease your symptoms
• stay in touch with family and friends over the phone or on social media, to help you avoid feeling low or lonely
• try to keep yourself busy – you could try activities like cooking, reading, online learning and watching films
• do light exercise, if you feel well enough to