Denver Post (October 20)
“Poor people around the world who were among the hardest hit by the virus pandemic are also likely to be the last to recover from it.” The vaccines showing the most promise “need nonstop sterile refrigeration to stay potent and safe.” This isn’t available for over a third of the population. “Nearly 3 billion of the world’s 7.8 billion people live where temperature-controlled storage is insufficient for an immunization campaign to bring COVID-19 under control.”
Tags: COVID-19, Immunization, Pandemic, Poor, Population, Potent, Recover, Refrigeration, Safe, Sterile, Storage, Temperature, Vaccines
The Times (October 19)
“The pandemic has laid waste to high streets, costing thousands of jobs in the process.” A recent PWC study starkly illustrates the observation that “shop closures soared at a record rate in the first half of the year as coronavirus lockdowns hit the high street.” During that period, “Britain lost 6,001 more chain stores than it gained in the first half, up from a loss of 3,509 in the same period last year.”
Tags: Britain, Closures, Coronavirus, High streets, Jobs, Lockdowns, Pandemic, PwC, Shops, Stores, Waste
San Francisco Chronicle (October 13)
“As coronavirus cases swell across much of the United States and the nation lurches toward a uniquely tumultuous election day, California has held off another pandemic upswing. Public health experts, however, warn the state is still vulnerable.” The nation “topped 50,000 new cases on four of the past seven day, the highest numbers since August.”
Tags: California, Cases, Coronavirus, Election day, Experts, Pandemic, Public health, Swell, Tumultuous, U.S., Upswing, Vulnerable
New York Times (October 7)
“The debate over Trump himself is over. The verdict is in: He cast himself as Superman, but he turns out to have been Superspreader — not only of a virus but of a whole way of looking at the world in a pandemic that was dangerously wrong for himself and our nation. To re-elect him would be an act of collective madness.”
Tags: Dangerous, Debate, Madness, Pandemic, Re-elect, Superman, Superspreader, Trump, Verdict, Virus, Wrong
USA Today (October 7)
The “superspreader” event in the Rose Garden will go down in history. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the “maskless Supreme Court nomination ceremony turned into a form of biological attack on the top echelons of U.S. government.” Symbolic of “America’s failing response to the novel coronavirus,” the event was “a sad brew of hubris and misapplied science.” White House officials and guests mistakenly thought “they could frolic in a kind of virus-free bubble, exempted from the preventative measures that have reshaped and constrained the lives of millions of average Americans.”
Tags: Biological attack, Bubble, Ceremony, COVID-19, Failing, Frolic, History, Hubris, Maskless, Nomination, Pandemic, Rose Garden, Superspreader, Supreme Court, U.S.
Business Insider (October 5)
“Pope Francis echoed Warren Buffett in blaming unfettered capitalism for rising inequality in a letter to the Catholic Church’s bishops titled Fratelli Tutti over the weekend.” The Pontiff “pointed to the pandemic’s fallout, including massive unemployment spikes around the world, as evidence that ‘not everything can be resolved by market freedom.’”
Tags: Buffett, Capitalism, Catholic, Fallout, Francis, Fratelli Tutti, Inequality, Market freedom, Pandemic, Pope, Unemployment, Unfettered
Financial Times (October 3)
“Donald Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis has pushed the US into unchartered territory. A country already racked by economic devastation, racial unrest and a pandemic is now asking what happens if Covid-19 incapacitates the president weeks before election day.”
Tags: Coronavirus, COVID-19, Diagnosis, Economic devastation, Election day, Incapacitates, Pandemic, Racial unrest, Trump, U.S.
Washington Post (September 30)
Few nations “have been upended like Japan” by the coronavirus. “Working from home was almost unthinkable before the pandemic but now appears to be gathering some momentum.” Pasona is even moving its headquarters from Tokyo to Awaji Island. “It’s a revolutionary idea in Japan’s rigid corporate culture—and a sign of how the coronavirus pandemic is reimagining where and how people work worldwide.”
Tags: Awaji, Coronavirus, Corporate culture, Headquarters, Home, Japan, Pandemic, Pasona, Revolutionary, Rigid, Tokyo, Upended, Work
The Economist (September 26)
“The pandemic could lead governments to prolong the life of many undeserving firms. Keeping the growth of the undead in check will be vital to the long-term economic recovery…. Marginally profitable firms were central to Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s…. Zombie-infested industries suffered from inert labour markets and lower productivity growth. Since then, the rich world as a whole has begun to look more zombified.”
Tags: Economic recovery, Governments, Growth, Inert, Japan, Labour markets, Lost decade, Pandemic, Productivity, Profitable, Undeserving, Zombie, Zombified
The Guardian (September 25)
“It doesn’t take an Einstein to observe the folly of Johnson doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result. Delaying inevitable tougher rules will likely do what it did before. Prolonging the pandemic worsens the economy as well as the roll-call of death and serious long-term Covid illness. But nothing in Johnson’s reckless life suggests any precautionary DNA in his selfish genes.”
Tags: Covid, Death, Delaying, Economy, Einstein, Folly, Illness, Inevitable, Johnson, Pandemic, Prolonging, Reckless, Selfish, UK
