“How dare you blame the people of Pakistan for your criminal negligence in the country? How dare you,” PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said. Geo News/via The News
ISLAMABAD: PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday strongly criticised Pakistan’s response to coronavirus led by Prime Minister Imran Khan and the federal government, terming it “criminal negligence”.
“Who had said that the coronavirus is just a mild flu and not a deadly disease,” Bilawal said while addressing the Parliament during the third day of coronavirus budget session.
“Who opposed the lockdowns in the country and then imposed the lockdown and then eased them and to date is confused on what to do?
“How dare you blame the people of Pakistan for your criminal negligence in the country? How dare you?”
The PPP chairperson said every 15 minutes, someone died of the deadly COVID-19 — the disease caused by the novel coronavirus infection — in Pakistan and on top of that, the country “is threatened by locust attacks”.
“We have a forecast for tsunami and global recession. This cannot be a budget of a country suffering from the global pandemic,” he said, highlighting that the South Asian nation had 149,000 patients of the respiratory illness and that another 2,900 citizens had succumbed to it.
Noting that the close to 2,000 frontline healthcare workers had contracted the coronavirus and 40 had lost their lives, Bilawal slammed the government over its incompetency and inability to plan. The Pakistani people were expecting the budget to be in accordance with the country’s pandemic woes “but they opposed every decision taken to stem the spread of the disease,” he added.
“The federal government did not just oppose Sindh’s but every provincial government’s decision regarding curbing the coronavirus [spread]. Now when we know that the virus has gone rampant, did we drastically increase the health budget? No!
“Have increased the salaries of our front line workers? Have we given them the risk allowance? No! How much proportion have we separated for the awareness of the virus?”
The PPP chief blasted the PTI-led federal government for constituting the budget in a manner that implied the deadly virus was the talk of past and Pakistan had already combated it. “We’d been putting our concerns forward regarding the locust attacks.
“We’d been shouting in the Parliament about the threats of the virus since February but nobody listened to us. [BNP Chairperson] Akhtar Mengal and [former president] Asif Ali Zardari had been voicing concerns about the locust attacks previously.
“They had already warned that this is the biggest threat in 25 years. You kept on saying that the National Action Plan (NAP) is ready and we will fight through! What are you waiting for?â€
“Are you waiting for droughts, famines and economic downfall in the country? Who should we blame for these ineffective decisions? We wanted to combat the virus with political unity,” Bilawal added, noting that the government of Sindh and PPP had appealed to the Centre to follow the guidelines issued by the World Health Organization (WHO).
He further chastised Prime Minister Imran Khan’s administration for prioritising resumption of business operations.
“We were listening to our health professionals and their guidelines but our prime minister was listening to the business community and catering to their needs and demands,” he noted, underlining how after easing the lockdown restrictions, the virus spread from urban centres to rural areas.
“We had the examples of China, Germany, and Italy, [all of] which were constantly telling us not to repeat their mistakes. Now you will contend that these are rich countries but we also have low-cost solutions.
“We have examples of Vietnam where not even one life was lost to the virus. They worked with compact and united strategies,” he explained.
Taking a jibe at the cricketer-turned-prime minister and his slogan, he sarcastically said: “Oh but ghabrana nahi hai [no need to worry] since we won the 1992 World Cup! Right?”
The PPP chairperson then lambasted the ruling PTI’s minister for giving examples of Sweden — a lax lockdown policy where eateries, gyms, and schools remained open and that the country’s former health chief later said “hasn’t been the smartest”.
“The most loss is borne by the country [Sweden] financially and socially and [it] has suffered the worst of both worlds. Till date, the international organisations have been giving guidelines to contain the virus,” he said.
“If we are expecting that the general masses will voluntarily wear masks and will adhere to the precautionary measures, then we are wrong. It is we who have to come up with a strategic plan,” Bilawal added.
Football is not going to be the same again. That is about as obvious an observation you can make as we welcome the return of the English Premier League. But the peculiarity of it all will come from far more than the conspicuous — the echoes around an empty Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the audible hoarse voice of a remonstrating Pep Guardiola blasted from your TV — and will extend to the fabric of the game itself.
When sport was put on ice a few months ago, the popular refrain was that professional athletes had finally learned that they’re not that important after all. It all seemed rather silly to obsess over obscenely-paid ball kickers when confronted with a real-word global crisis. The decision to call it all off was, at least at first, a no-brainer.
In the days that followed elite footballers surely have never felt as redundant. There was no Tik-Tok dance in the world that could erase that feeling of irrelevance.
The last three or so weeks have changed that. Footballers are finally finding a voice, one that actually matters.
Galvanised by the Black Lives Matter protests, and perhaps spurned by their recent ineptitude, global superstars are finally speaking out on issues of importance en masse and using their platforms in a constructive manner.
We have never seen an outspoken wave of this magnitude before, certainly not in Europe’s top leagues. At club level it was easy to dismiss those first signs of solidarity as a cunning marketing ploy — even McDonald’s can post a support square on Instagram — but it is quickly evolving into something far more productive. Amid the countless collective decisions to take a knee in training, individual players, in particular, are now emboldened to speak out on issues that may have found them ostracised in the past.
Just this week Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford delivered an impassioned letter to MPs imploring them to listen to the pleas of vulnerable children across England and “find your humanityâ€. A few days earlier Raheem Sterling had kickstarted an extraordinarily uncomfortable conversation by demanding black managers be given the same opportunities as the beloved Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard. Â
This sense of activism is more in keeping with the historical ethos of football than the apathy we’ve become accustomed to in modern times. Yes, the pandemic has shown us we can live without Jesse Lingard’s increasingly sporadic goal celebrations but it does not discount the effect that football, as a sport, has on our society. If you have any doubt about that, look up any of the numerous examples of the melding of football and politics around the world, from sowing the seeds of the Egyptian revolution to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s preservation of power. Â
It is the big wigs of football, league chairpeople and club officials, herded by governing body Fifa, that have stubbornly pushed this preposterous, white-washed idea that current affairs should be kept far away from the pitch. We often berate our friends in the United States for adopting a “shut up and dribble†attitude but really we’ve all turned a blind eye as the same mindset has taken hold in our favourite game.
As the world’s most watched competition, the English Premier League will play a huge part in defining football’s place in the modern world. The signs indicate it’s time to stop being a “Weekend Special†and instead play an active role in the lives of its devotees.Â
The last dance
The beautiful paradox of football is that as much as it is inextricable from the world’s problems it is also the purest form of escapism. And there is certainly no shortage of subplots to get lost in when our favourite soapie returns this weekend.
The significant negation of home advantage and the ubiquitous rustiness sure to show up in the first days only heightens the drama.Â
One spoiler we can give is that Liverpool will win the league — there’s nothing nature can produce to stop that from happening now. The bulk of the excitement will come those just below them, namely those fighting for the Champions League spots.
Atop the pile of intrigue is Manchester City — specifically because they don’t know whether qualifying for the Champions League will be enough to get them there. The club are still waiting for the Court of Arbitration for Sport to decide if it will suspend their ban from Europe’s premier tournament.
Should they not do so it will likely bring a definitive, unceremonious end to the glorious Guardiola era. The coach has long been said to be considering his options and in either case will struggle to attract the necessary top talent without the promise of continental exploits for two years.
We could be watching a real-time rendition of everyone’s favourite quarantine watch, The Last Dance, an ode to Michael Jordan et al’s final championship winning season with the Chicago Bulls. It’s too late to take a crack at the league title but it would not be in keeping with Guardiola’s fiery Catalan character to go out without a few more defiant swings.
Watching City over the past three years has been about as close an approximation to perfection as you could get on a pitch. As fluid as the football has been at face value there is something deeply mechanical in how it operates on the back-end; as if every detail was meticulously selected to optimise its accompanying elements. Which they very much were.Â
The ultimate fuck you would be to win the Champions League this year. Should Real Madrid be overcome in the last 16, expect Guardiola to enter fine-tuning mode ahead of the newly announced quarterfinal mini-tournament in August.
Should the ban be upheld, it will mean fifth place will become an automatic qualification spot and sets up a fascinating battle royale between at least seven teams. Leicester City, 10 points above sixth, look to have escaped the scrap while Chelsea can cement their advantage if their young, injury-prone squad begins the restart with the same vigour that they did at the start of the season.
Everyone else’s fortunes are a lot harder to codify. Sheffield United, the defensive connoisseurs of the season, and the occasionally brilliant, if capricious, Wolves will continue in their assault on the status quo. Whether the abnormal structuring of the coming weeks will be a bolster or burden to their dreams is anyone’s guess but there’s no denying the size of the opportunity they have to grab a seat at the table.
Champions League qualification is important enough on an ordinary day; in these unusual times it will very likely be life or death for a club’s ambitions.Â
No one quite knows just how hard a knock the pandemic will have on international football finances but we can be certain that it won’t be good. This uneasiness forced Liverpool to give up on Timo Werner, a player they had courted for some time and was a relative bargain at €60-million in a world where teenagers go for double that. Those who have admirably built up a self-sustaining model — such as the champions-elect and Spurs — will probably teeter along a glass bridge for the foreseeable future. Missing out on the valuable income of Europe is not an option.
Which all sets up tantalisingly high stakes for the final, condensed rounds. Just as football has had to find its role in our new world, so too must its teams figure out where they stand in its hierarchy.
WASHINGTON — The 2016 theft of secret C.I.A. hacking tools by an agency officer, one of the largest breaches in agency history, was partly because of failures to install safeguards and officials who ignored the lessons of other government agencies that saw large breaches when employees stole secrets, according to an internal C.I.A. report released on Tuesday.
The C.I.A. fostered an innovative culture within its hacking team, which took great risks to create untraceable tools to steal secrets from foreign governments. But that team and its overseers were focused on building cutting-edge cyberweapons and spent too little energy protecting those tools, failing to put in place even common security standards like basic monitoring of who had access to its information, the report said.
The agency should have known better, the report concluded, given that the theft came years after highly public disclosures by the former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who stole data from the Pentagon and State Department, and the former contractor Edward Snowden, who took information from the National Security Agency. Both helped expose those secrets.
In March 2017, WikiLeaks published some of the C.I.A.’s most valuable hacking tools, which it called Vault 7. The WikiLeaks disclosure revealed some of the ways that the C.I.A. could break into foreign computer networks or activate the camera or microphone on electronic devices to eavesdrop on adversaries.
In the wake of that breach, Mike Pompeo, then the C.I.A. director, ordered a secret review of the leak and why the agency had not detected it. The report said that because of a lack of safeguards or activity monitoring, the agency could not determine the precise scope of the loss.
The C.I.A.’s WikiLeaks task force, not the agency’s independent inspector general, compiled the report.
The report had been partially declassified for the trial this year of Joshua Schulte, a former C.I.A. officer accused of giving the information to WikiLeaks. During the trial, defense lawyers read excerpts from the report but were not allowed to release even the redacted pages. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made the report public on Tuesday, and The Washington Post first reported a fuller version of its findings.
The C.I.A. declined to comment directly on the report. Timothy L. Barrett, the agency spokesman, said the C.I.A. was working to “incorporate best-in-class technologies to keep ahead of and defend against ever-evolving threats.â€
An agency employee was to blame for the theft of the data, the report said, without naming Mr. Schulte in the portions released publicly. Mr. Schulte’s trial ended with the jury divided on whether to convict him of the most serious crimes he was charged with, including illegal gathering and transmission of defense information. Mr. Schulte was convicted of contempt of court and making false statements to the F.B.I.
The government has said it intends to retry Mr. Schulte.
The report said the theft was the greatest data loss in the agency’s history. As much as 34 terabytes of information — up to 2.2 billion pages — were stolen, revealing the C.I.A.’s secret hacking methods.
Security on the elite hacking team was lax. Team members shared administrator passwords, and blocks on removable media, like thumb drives or writable discs, were ineffective. Those vulnerabilities made it easier for an insider to steal the C.I.A.’s data.
The loss to the agency was enormous. When WikiLeaks released the information, foreign governments were able to quickly fix vulnerabilities, kicking the C.I.A. out of their networks and cutting off its ability to listen surreptitiously to some devices.
But it is difficult to assess the precise loss to the C.I.A.’s hacking team. The report did say that the agency had moderate confidence that WikiLeaks did not get all of its hacking tools. Some were better protected on a so-called “Gold folder.â€
The report was heavily redacted and had at least 30 missing pages. Mr. Schulte’s defense had to fight the government to see even a portion of the report and was not allowed to release the document during the trial, said Sabrina Shroff, his lawyer. Ultimately, she said, she saw only about a quarter of the report.
“From the beginning of this case, the government sought to hide this report,†she said. “We had to litigate and claw our way to get an extra word made available to the defense. To this day, I have not seen the entirety of the report.â€
Insider threats are almost impossible to eliminate. But security measures can make it more difficult for disgruntled employees to steal classified information. By 2017, the threat of WikiLeaks should have been plain to anyone in an intelligence agency, the report said.
“For nearly a decade WikiLeaks has exploited the digital realm to profoundly reshape opportunities for individuals sworn to protect our nation’s secrets to leak classified or sensitive information,†the report said.
The report outlined a system where different arms of the agency developed their own information technology capabilities and systems of policing themselves. That culture of “shadow I.T.†created “unacceptable risk†for the C.I.A.
The hacking team’s tools were on computer systems that lacked the ability to audit the information stored on them. The C.I.A., according to the report, did not learn about the loss until a year after it occurred, when WikiLeaks announced in March 2017 that it had the Vault 7 data.
In a letter to John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, Mr. Wyden said the report suggested that Congress’s decision to exempt intelligence agencies from federal cybersecurity requirements was a mistake.
Mr. Wyden said that vulnerabilities remained within the intelligence community’s information technology.
“The lax cybersecurity practices documented in the C.I.A.’s WikiLeaks task force report do not appear limited to just one part of the intelligence community,†Mr. Wyden wrote.
Firefighters in the Gresilles area of Dijon on June 15, 2020 | Philippe Desmazes/AFP via Getty Images
Authorities’ response deemed too soft as armed gangs battle on the streets.
PARIS — The French government is under pressure over its response to gang violence in the city of Dijon, which entered its fourth day on Tuesday.
The clashes started Friday night after a 16-year-old Chechen was reportedly beaten by drug dealers in the city. Since then, revenge raids have been carried out against drug dealers in parts of the city, the capital of the Burgundy region in the east of France. Videos on social media show people roaming the streets wielding machine guns, baseball bats and metal rods.
Cars and garbage cans have been set on fire and a local TV crew was assaulted. So far four people have been arrested, drawing criticism that law enforcement is being too soft.
“I want to send a very clear message to the thugs we saw exhibiting weapons,” said Laurent Nuñez, secretary of state at the Interior Ministry, after meeting with local police leaders on Tuesday. “Our response will be extremely firm.” Some 150 gendarmes were sent to help security forces on Tuesday.
The government is under increasing pressure on law and order after a series of anti-police brutality and anti-racism protests, as well as a protest by medical workers that ended in violent clashes on Tuesday.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen didn’t miss the opportunity to wade into the debate on her favorite issues of security and immigration.
“We no longer know if we are in the Far West or Baghdad, in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ or ‘Mad Max,'” said Le Pen, who denounced the “inertia” and “silence” of authorities.
Google has banned two far-right websites from its advertising platform after research revealed the tech giant was profiting from articles pushing unsubstantiated claims about the Black Lives Matter protests.
The two sites, ZeroHedge and The Federalist, will no longer be able to generate revenue from any advertisements served by Google Ads.
A Google spokesperson said in an email that it took action after determining the websites violated its policies on content related to race.
“We have strict publisher policies that govern the content ads can run on and explicitly prohibit derogatory content that promotes hatred, intolerance, violence or discrimination based on race from monetizing,” the spokesperson wrote. “When a page or site violates our policies, we take action. In this case, we’ve removed both sites’ ability to monetize with Google.â€
Google’s ban of the websites comes after the company was notified of research conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a British nonprofit that combats online hate and misinformation. They found that 10 U.S-based websites have published what they say are racist articles about the protests, and projected that the websites would make millions of dollars through Google Ads.
Google blocked The Federalist from its advertising platform after the NBC News Verification Unit brought the project to its attention. ZeroHedge had already been demonetized prior to NBC News’ enquiry, Google said. ZeroHedge and The Federalist did not respond to requests for comment.
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Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said it found advertisements for many companies that had otherwise made public statements supporting Black Lives Matter and the recent protests running on the websites.
“We found that lots of those companies are inadvertently funding through their advertising content that is outright racist in defense of white supremacism and contains conspiracy theories about George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement,” he said.
Google has banned various websites from its advertising platform in recent years, mostly targeting fake news operations.
ZeroHedge and The Federalist have become well known in recent years for publishing far-right articles on a variety of subjects. On the recent protests, ZeroHedge published an article claiming that protests were fake, while The Federalist published an article claiming the media had been lying about looting and violence during the protests, which were both included in the report sent to Google.
As the Black Lives Matter protests unfolded over recent weeks, hundreds of corporations eagerly lent their support. This includes Google, which said it has donated “$12 million in funding to organizations working to address racial inequities.â€
There are other similar websites that continue to generate revenue through Google, causing continued concern for civil rights advocates. In its report, the Center for Countering Digital Hate pointed to examples of articles on other far-right websites such that carried advertisements by well-known brands while disseminating false narratives about the protest movement.
The issue also poses significant risks for brand security.
Caroline McCarthy, vice president of communications and content at TrueX, a digital advertising company, said companies need to hold Google and other digital advertising companies responsible for where their ads run.
“The reality is that they [brands] have to start by asking questions,†McCarthy said “They have to say, what is my brand content going to be running against? And if the other person on the other side of the conversation can’t give them a straight answer, then that’s a problem.â€
“The pressure on the tech companies is only going to come from dollars actually, literally getting pulled,†she said.
Adele-Momoko Fraser
Adele-Momoko Fraser is a producer with the NBC News Verification Unit.
In the largest study to date looking at the antibodies produced by people who have recovered from COVID-19, researchers uncovered a few surprises that could have implications for not only how useful antibody-based treatments might be, but also what the results from an individual’s antibody test actually means.
Right now, most people that get antibody tests want to learn if they have been infected with COVID-19 or not, since so many experience mild, or no symptoms of the illness. But that information could in theory be used to answer questions well beyond personal curiosity. For public health experts, these results are important for getting an idea of how deeply COVID-19 penetrated specific communities, and how widespread the infection was—and, how rampant it could potentially become again. The more people who get tested, the more accurate such prevalence data can be. But there are other, equally critical ways that antibody testing could help to monitor and ultimately control the pandemic in coming months.
In the study published in medRxiv, a preprint server for posting studies before they are peer-reviewed, a team at the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute of the New York Blood Center and Rockefeller University analyzed 370 plasma samples donated from people who recovered from COVID-19 and found some surprising results. The researchers used several antibody testing methods, including two commercially available tests, to document levels of immune system antibodies those patients generated against SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19. (All produced similarly reliable readings.) The researchers then tested these antibodies against a SARS-CoV-2 virus substitute in the lab to see if the antibodies could actually neutralize the virus (such stand-ins, which mimic actual viruses without being infectious, are often used to laboratory research settings to avoid spreading disease).
Overall, around 88% of the people generated varying levels of antibodies to the virus. But only about 10% of them had high levels that were able to neutralize the lab-based version of the COVID-19 virus—and, on the other side of the spectrum, 17% had almost no antibody response to their infection.
What that means is so-called “natural immunity†to SARS-CoV-2 may be more complicated than the idea that everyone infected with COVID-19 is robustly protected from getting the disease again, says Dr. Larry Luchsinger, assistant member at the research institute and the lead author of the paper. “There was a very significant group of people who had essentially no neutralizing activity [against the virus]. What we found was that surprisingly, across all tests, there was a very wide deviation or range of antibody results that people were experiencing.â€
More data needs to be collected to understand why recovered patients have such a wide range in antibody levels, and how that could affect people’s ability to fight off future infections with the virus. The findings imply, for example, that there may be different ways of fighting SARS-CoV-2 infection. Since all of the people recovered from their infections, some people’s immune systems may rely heavily on antibodies, while others turn to different types of cells to fend off the virus.
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The results make a strong case for doctors to not just test for antibody levels, but to learn what those levels might mean for each patient’s ability to fight further infection. Making those sorts of determinations isn’t possible yet, but it might be with more data on the antibody levels of recovered patients.
“At this very moment, little is known about antibodies and their utility,†Michael Mina, assistant professor of epidemiology and faculty member at the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health said in a question-and-answer session with reporters. As more data become available, doctors might be able to determine what level of antibodies are more likely to provide protection against getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 again, and share this information with their patients, who would then know how vulnerable they might be to re-infection.
Luchsinger’s results are a start for building that data; the study does include detailed results on levels of two commercial antibody tests, one from Ortho and the other from Abbott, as well as results on how well those antibodies identified by the tests could neutralize the virus in a lab setting. However, “The unfortunate thing is, the only way to know [for sure] what level of neutralizing activity is required is to take individuals and re-expose them to COVID-19,†Luchsinger says. “There are ethical dilemmas in doing something like that.â€
Still, being able to use antibody tests to identify people who have little ability to neutralize the virus, and those who are better able to do so, could be important in advising them about how they can stop the spread of COVID-19. “The people who don’t have a lot of neutralizing activity should be cautious, and take precautions to keep themselves and their loved ones safe,†says Luchsinger.
To get a fuller picture of what antibody responses to COVID-19 actually mean for immunity, Luchsinger is expanding the study and matching up people’s antibody levels with their symptoms, to see if there is any correlation between how severe people’s symptoms were and how actively their antibodies could neutralize the virus.
Such information will be even more crucial in coming months, as employers and public health officials rely on these data to track how people can stay safe in communities when they are at work, or using public transportation or at public gatherings. Antibody testing will also be important as vaccines are rolled out, as public health officials will likely want to get vaccination to those with low or no antibody levels, who are more vulnerable to infection. Tracking these antibody levels over time among the vaccinated will also give experts useful information on how well the vaccines are working.
“We just have to be a little patient and let the studies come in,†says Mina. “But the infrastructure for antibody testing needs to be built up even if right now we’re not seeing immediate benefit beyond [finding people who have been infected].â€
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(ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.) — It’s been a rough year for the American psyche. Folks in the U.S. are more unhappy today than they’ve been in nearly 50 years.
This bold — yet unsurprising — conclusion comes from the COVID Response Tracking Study, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. It finds that just 14% of American adults say they’re very happy, down from 31% who said the same in 2018. That year, 23% said they’d often or sometimes felt isolated in recent weeks. Now, 50% say that.
The survey, conducted in late May, draws on nearly a half-century of research from the General Social Survey, which has collected data on American attitudes and behaviors at least every other year since 1972. No less than 29% of Americans have ever called themselves very happy in that survey.
Most of the new survey’s interviews were completed before the death of George Floyd touched off nationwide protests and a global conversation about race and police brutality, adding to the feelings of stress and loneliness Americans were already facing from the coronavirus outbreak — especially for black Americans.
Lexi Walker, a 47-year-old professional fiduciary who lives near Greenville, South Carolina, has felt anxious and depressed for long stretches of this year. She moved back to South Carolina late in 2019, then her cat died. Her father passed away in February. Just when she thought she’d get out and socialize in an attempt to heal from her grief, the pandemic hit.
“It’s been one thing after another,†Walker said. “This is very hard. The worst thing about this for me, after so much, I don’t know what’s going to happen.â€
Among other finding from the new poll about life in the pandemic:
— The public is less optimistic today about the standard of living improving for the next generation than it has been in the past 25 years. Only 42% of Americans believe that when their children reach their age, their standard of living will be better. A solid 57% said that in 2018. Since the question was asked in 1994, the previous low was 45% in 1994.
— Compared with surveys conducted after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans are less likely to report some types of emotional and psychological stress reactions following the COVID-19 outbreak. Fewer report smoking more than usual, crying or feeling dazed now than after those two previous tragedies, though more report having lost their temper or wanting to get drunk.
— About twice as many Americans report being lonely today as in 2018, and not surprisingly given the lockdowns that tried to contain the spread of the coronavirus, there’s also been a drop in satisfaction with social activities and relationships. Compared with 2018, Americans also are about twice as likely to say they sometimes or often have felt a lack of companionship (45% vs. 27%) and felt left out (37% vs. 18%) in the past four weeks.
What is surprising, said Louise Hawkley, a senior research scientist with NORC at the University of Chicago, was that loneliness was not even more prevalent.
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“It isn’t as high as it could be,†she said. “People have figured out a way to connect with others. It’s not satisfactory, but people are managing to some extent.â€
The new poll found that there haven’t been significant changes in Americans’ assessment of their families’ finances since 2018 and that Americans’ satisfaction with their families’ ability to get along financially was as high as it’s been over nearly five decades.
Jonathan Berney, of Austin, Texas, said that the pandemic — and his resulting layoff as a digital marketing manager for a law firm — caused him to reevaluate everything in his life. While he admits that he’s not exactly happy now, that’s led to another uncomfortable question: Was he truly happy before the pandemic?
“2020 just fast forwarded a spiritual decay. When things are good, you don’t tend to look inwards,†he said, adding that he was living and working in the Miami area before the pandemic hit. As Florida dealt with the virus, his girlfriend left him and he decided to leave for Austin. “I probably just wasn’t a nice guy to be around from all the stress and anxiety. But this forced an existential crisis.â€
Berney, who is looking for work, said things have improved from those early, dark days of the pandemic. He’s still job hunting but has a little savings to live on. He said he’s trying to kayak more and center himself so he’s better prepared to deal with any future downturn in events.
Reimagining happiness is almost hard-wired into Americans’ DNA, said Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside.
“Human beings are remarkably resilient. There’s lots and lots of evidence that we adapt to everything. We move forward,†she said, adding that she’s done happiness studies since the pandemic started and found that some people are slightly happier than last year.
Melinda Hartline, of Tampa, who was laid off from her job in public relations in March, said she was in a depressed daze those first few weeks of unemployment. Then she started to bike and play tennis and enrolled in a college course on post-crisis leadership.
Today, she’s worried about the state of the world and the economy, and she wonders when she can see her kids and grandkids who live on the West Coast — but she also realizes that things could be a lot worse.
“Anything can happen. And you have to be prepared,†she said. “Whether it’s your health, your finances, whether it’s the world. You have to be prepared. And always maintain that positive mental attitude. It’s going to get you through it.â€
___
The survey of 2,279 adults was conducted May 21-29 with funding from the National Science Foundation. It uses a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
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Tony Auliano and his wife, Melinda Lantz, stood, drinks in hand, outside the Factory 380, an Andy Warhol-themed bar on Third Avenue in Manhattan, on a recent Friday night. Mr. Auliano, 63, would have rather have been inside the bar, which, like many in New York City these days, is selling drinks to go. But he was happy for any social interaction he could get.
“This is a good thing,†he said, “an opportunity to communicate, come out, have a drink.â€
Ms. Lantz, a psychiatrist at Mount Sinai Hospital who has worked nonstop since Covid-19 took hold of the city, agreed — so much that she recently invited her co-workers to join her. “I actually hosted an informal and unapproved happy hour on the sidewalk two weeks ago,†said Ms. Lantz, 59. “I had all my staff come and anyone who wanted to drink. They felt great. It was like a turning point for my department.â€
Of all the New York City businesses impatiently awaiting for official permission to reopen, bars arguably face the biggest challenges. Every aspect of their appeal — large crowds in small spaces, close contact with strangers, mouths constantly open to drink or talk — runs contrary to the watchful guidelines that frame conduct during the pandemic.
That concern has been borne out in recent weeks as patrons have moved outdoors, congregating in large numbers in neighborhoods, like Hell’s Kitchen, with a high concentration of bars. Over the weekend, a video on social media of tightly packed throngs of young drinkers on an East Village street drew a Twitter message from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, threatening to intervene: â€Don’t make me come down there,†he warned.
In some neighborhoods, residents have complained to the police about the hazards, noise and even the public urination that outdoor crowds can bring. Fines have been issued.
But in other parts of the city, the groups have been smaller, and bar owners are trying to strike a balance between their business interests and public safety.
In March, the state threw bars a lifeline by allowing them to sell to-go drinks; owners grabbed onto it, first haltingly, then with gusto. Today, there is a barely a block, it seems, without a bar handing cocktails, wine and beer through its front door or window.
The general rule for such service is “take out, don’t hang out.†But patrons, thirsty not only for an adult beverage but also for the social experience they associate with it, aren’t always heeding that. From Murray Hill to Cobble Hill, the city’s bar scene has turned inside out: Outdoor drinking has replaced indoor drinking, with groups of friends socializing on the sidewalk in front of their chosen watering hole, perching on fire hydrants, stoops or chairs provided by the bars.
At some bars, business has been slow to return. When the 166-year-old McSorley’s Old Ale House, in the East Village, started selling its famous dark and light ales to go, in mid-March, it attracted little business and shut down after a few days. “Nobody was coming,†said Gregory de la Haba, who operates the bar. “It seemed too high a risk and not worth the headache.â€
Once the weather warmed and more people hit the streets, the bar gave it another shot. The customers showed, and stayed. “I knew every single person that came,†Mr. de la Haba said. “What was beautiful was to see all my neighbors, who came over to say, ‘It’s so great to see you open.’ â€
Kevin Bradford, an owner of Harlem Hops, a beer bar on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, said he understood why his customers might want to linger a bit. “These people have been cooped up so long,†he said. By early June, “the regular people who used to get deliveries opted to walk to the place.â€
When citywide protests over the killing of George Floyd began, and Mayor Bill de Blasio imposed an 8 p.m. curfew, the bar crowds dwindled, and some bars closed altogether for a time. But in the days since the curfew was lifted on June 6, they have returned in full force.
Bars have become creative in trying to keep their impromptu street trade safe. Signs requiring or at least imploring patrons to wear masks are posted everywhere, and sidewalks are marked with chalk or tape to show how people in line should space themselves.
Observing safety guidelines while not alienating customers can be tricky. “You ask them to move, they’ll move,†said John Hayes, the owner of Doc Watson’s, on the Upper East Side. “But they’re not going to disappear. You don’t want the last thing they remember is you chased them away.â€
For bars, whose business models have turned upside-down since the shutdown began, adjust and adapt is the name of the game. Basquiat’s Bottle, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, was an art- and nightlife-oriented place before Covid-19, going into the wee hours. It’s now open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and has had increased food sales.
Before the shutdown, Harlem Hops sold two to three crowlers a week (a crowler is like a growler, but in jumbo-can format). Now it sells 30 to 35 a day.
Just as bar owners are figuring out the new landscape as they go, the people they serve have discovered new advantages to the arrangement.
“During this time of year, sometimes I prefer an outside bar or rooftop, or a place by the water,†said Robert Cabo, 29, an architect and a regular at the Factory 380. “Now, because this is happening, I have no reason not to come here.â€
Amid the uncertainly fostered by the pandemic, every week seems like a new world for bars. While a bill before the State Legislature could extend the life of the new policy allowing to-go service, the large street gatherings, or a rise in Covid cases, could prompt an edict to halt takeout.
But just as New York residents and bars have quickly become used to the freedom of drinks to go, they may not want to let go of citywide alfresco drinking, even when it’s no longer necessary as an economic alternative for bars.
“For the record,†said David Kuhl, 35, standing with a group of friends outside the Factory 380 one balmy evening, “we prefer this.â€
The coronavirus pandemic set off a race to both develop and acquire an eventual vaccine against the virus | Remko De Waal/ANP/AFP via Getty Images
Most just want a vaccine — however it happens.
At least they’re not going it alone this time.
Lacking a cohesive or coordinated policy during the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, EU member countries fought each other for much-needed protective equipment for their medical professionals.
The European Commission tried to jointly procure some items like gloves and ventilators, but the bureaucratic machinery means many countries have yet to place their orders.
Now that a global race to buy up vaccines accelerating, the Commission is trying to get ahead with a new strategy, to be announced Wednesday, to buy vaccines in advance.
The Commission has a new mechanism called the Emergency Support Instrument (ESI), which allows the Commission to purchase on behalf of EU member countries, bypassing the red tape that’s held up joint procurements.
“By doing this you are weakening everyone: both the Commission’s overall initiative and your own position” — Belgian Health Minister Maggie De Block
It has up to €2.7 billion to start spending on vaccines that are still under development and have yet to be approved.
But, even now, it may be playing catch-up.
While the Commission races to ensure it is not left behind big spenders like the United States in the vaccine race, frustration over past issues with joint procurement prompted four EU countries — Germany, France, the Netherlands and Italy — earlier this month to set up the “Inclusive Vaccine Alliance.â€
This initiative will negotiate the prices of coronavirus vaccines so that, once approved, they can be made affordable to all Europeans, with a priority for those manufactured in Europe.
But there is confusion over how this alliance will interact with the Commission’s new vaccine strategy. Both are moving ahead simultaneously, but not necessarily in tandem.
The following day, the vaccine alliance announced it had signed a deal to purchase between 300 and 400 million doses of a vaccine developed by Anglo-Swedish drug company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
Belgian Health Minister Maggie De Block was not enthused, telling Belgian media that negotiating outside the all-EU alliance is “unreasonable.”
“By doing this you are weakening everyone: both the Commission’s overall initiative and your own position,” she said.
Publicly, the Commission has downplayed any issue with the four-nation alliance. Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas said in an interview with POLITICO that the two approaches are “not incompatible.”
“What matters here is to make sure that everyone is covered [by a vaccine],” he said.
Malta’s Health Minister Chris Fearne confirmed that the country will be joining the alliance | Domenic Aquilina/EPA
But according to one national diplomat, the Commission is not happy with the alliance, which was born out of a feeling that the Commission could not be trusted to move quickly enough to secure sufficient vaccine supplies.
“There was a certain expression, mostly hidden in diplomatic terms, … that the EU procurement experience, especially in masks and ventilators, has not been very successful,” the diplomat said.
Countries felt like they were “losing time,” the diplomat added, as the U.S. had already invested billions in numerous vaccine candidates through its Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
Another national diplomat from one of the four alliance countries stressed that speed was paramount. “There was an opportunity now to close this deal,” the diplomat said. “In a moment where speed is of the essence, the four had to act fast.”
European People’s Party MEP Peter Liese said the “best approach” would be for the alliance to completely merge “with the initiative of the Commission.”
The diplomat added that the entire goal of the alliance is to create as much production capacity as possible and ensure access to vaccines for developing countries. Other countries are keen to jump on board.
Malta’s Health Minister Chris Fearne, who was first to call for the EU to jointly procure a vaccine in February, confirmed to POLITICO that the country will be joining the alliance.
Malta set up the Valletta Initiative, a grouping of 10 mostly southern and southeastern countries that try to negotiate drug prices collectively. Fearne welcomed the alliance and said it seems to have already “brought progress.â€
“I think any initiative which brings vaccines across the member states … brings value,” he said.
But it’s still not clear how much the Commission and the alliance are really cooperating.
“I don’t think there will be a Chinese wall,” between the Commission and the alliance, Schinas said. “Clearly what we cannot do is pay twice for the same vaccine. There is an element of choice as to which approach one should follow.”
There are also questions about the terms of the deal with AstraZeneca; whether the Commission will help pay for the 400 million doses secured in the initial alliance deal; and how the alliance will ensure vaccines are distributed equally to all EU countries.
And perhaps most importantly: Will the two initiatives merge at some stage?
A top AstraZeneca executive thinks so.
“I do believe that at the end, all these strategies will come [together] as one big strategy in order to provide not only not only a University of Oxford COVID vaccine, but also other but also other vaccines that are potential candidates,†said Iskra Reic, the drugmaker’s executive vice president for Europe and Canada.
European People’s Party MEP Peter Liese said the “best approach” would be for the alliance to completely merge “with the initiative of the Commission.”
Then again, he cautioned, “it remains to be seen if that really happens.”
Sarah Wheaton and Carlo Martuscelli contributed reporting.
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to state that 10 countries make up the Valletta Initiative.
This article is part of POLITICO’s premium policy service: Pro Health Care. From drug pricing, EMA, vaccines, pharma and more, our specialized journalists keep you on top of the topics driving the health care policy agenda. Email pro@politico.eu for a complimentary trial.
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