Charting the coronavirus pandemic over the next 12 months — and beyond

The Road Ahead: Charting the coronavirus pandemic over the next 12 months — and beyond:Then there were moments when the new reality arrived with the subtlety of a sonic boom. Take March 11: Trump halted most travel from Europe. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they had Covid-19. The NBA suspended its season.

Now — with health authorities saying it may not be until at least the end of 2021 before there’s a degree of post-Covid normalcy in our lives — look forward. Imagine the next 15 months and what life will be like.

GTIPA Perspectives: Covid-19 on Public Health and the Economy of GTIPA Member Nations

GTIPA Perspectives: Covid-19 on Public Health and the Economy of GTIPA Member Nations - 2020: The COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted the largest shock on the global economy since the Second World War, resulting in job losses for over 500 million individuals worldwide, reduced global trade flows, and a sharp decline in gross domestic product (GDP) growth. The effects have been severe, with the global economy at the end of 2020 projected to be 8 percent smaller than it would have been in the absence of the pandemic. According to the latest edition of the World Economic Outlook released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) earlier this month, the global economy is expected to shrink in aggregate by 4 percent in 2020, rebounding to 5 percent growth in 2021. In dollar terms, this amounts to an estimated $3.7 trillion in wealth being destroyed in 2020. Advanced economies are projected to be hit harder than the global economy on average and recover more slowly, with GDP forecast to fall almost 6 percent this year, and only rise about 4 percent next year. By contrast, the developing world is projected to see a more than 3 percent drop in GDP this year, and a surge of more than 6 percent in 2021. This leaves the developed world to deal with the economic consequences of COVID-19 after many developing nations have surpassed their pre-COVID-19 GDP peaks, resulting in diverging growth paths between the developed and developing worlds. This is evidenced by the largest distribution of growth across 50 countries in 40 years during the second quarter of this year, and the estimate that America’s economy will be the same size next year as it was in 2019, while China’s will be 10 percent larger.

Global trade is projected to fall (and subsequently rise) disproportionately to GDP growth, both this year and in 2021. The World Trade Organization (WTO) forecasts that global trade will fall by around 9 percent in 2020, rebounding to a greater than 7 percent increase next year.14 However, the most recent trade forecast is significantly better than the 12.9 percent drop forecasted by the WTO in April. Trade in COVID-19-related products, such as personal protective equipment (PPE), and strong trade performance in June and July due to easing lockdowns have all improved the once-dismal outlook. This is in contrast to the 14.3 percent-collapse in global trade flows experienced in the second quarter of this year, highlighting the severe economic consequences of the lockdowns initiated around the world.

Europeans know and act on WHO recommendations during COVID-19

Europeans know and act on WHO recommendations during COVID-19 | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal: Looking at country level variations (Figure 1), we see that the proportion of respondents who reported being moderately or very familiar with the recommendations was highest in Portugal (95.2%) and lowest in the UK (81.4%). (... ) Comparing countries, Portugal and Italy perform best in adhering to all the WHO recommendations, while France and Denmark perform the worst.

Is evidence masks don’t work being purged from the internet?

Is evidence masks don’t work being purged from the internet?  The dentistry journal Oral Health Group has removed a research paper from its website which found masks do not work to halt the spread of disease. They claim the paper is “no longer relevant in the current climate”.

The article – “Why Face Masks Don’t Work: A Revealing Review” – has been used as a source before by us before (see here), and was a great collation of all the research studies done on the effectiveness of masks as a disease prevention tool. In general it found the evidence suggested masks have little to no value as infection preventatives.

The Importance of Face Masks

The Importance of Face Masks and the Tragedy of Downplaying Them: Let’s start all over again about face masks. The noise about them is a Judas Priest blare. Can we turn down the volume for a moment? OK, good, thanks. Now, let’s talk about their value. Why there is such discord about them. After all, what has the clamor wrought? Nothing good, says Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and associate division chief of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine.

Gandhi has experienced the racket firsthand. In June she published a study, “Masks Do More Than Protect Others During COVID-19,” which discusses “for one of the first times the hypothesis that universal masking reduces the ‘inoculum’ or dose of the virus for the mask-wearer, leading to more mild and asymptomatic infection” rates. When the study was publicized, Gandhi’s Twitter account was stoned with hate. “I got so many anti-masker comments,” she says. “They were really harsh. They went on about oxygenation and smothering and how there’s no evidence for masking. They were profoundly disturbing. So I signed out and have no intention of going back to Twitter.”

Gandhi says this in the most bitter-free tones you can imagine. 

Laws and perceptions of social norms: the lockdown

Laws and perceptions of social norms: Lessons from the lockdown: In order to promote social distancing to contain the spread of Covid-19, governments introduced strict regulations. This column uses interviews from before the 23 March announcement of a nationwide UK lockdown and after the announcement to show that the introduction of the new laws affected the perception of social norms regarding the various containment measures – that is, what people thought the prevalent norms were. This appears to have been the result of fewer misperceptions about the social norms after the introduction of the laws, rather than actual changes in the social norms.

Femme, 50 ans, Bac+2… Une étude dresse le portrait-robot des «anti-masques»

Femme, 50 ans, Bac+2… Une étude dresse le portrait-robot des «anti-masques»: Une étude publiée le 7 septembre par la Fondation Jean Jaurès dresse un portrait surprenant des «anti-masques», à partir de témoignages recueillis sur les groupes Facebook où ils se réunissent.