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Labourers rest as they offload bags of grains as part of relief food that was sent from Ukraine at the World Food Program (WFP) warehouse in Adama town, Ethiopia.
Hard Numbers: Sub-Saharan Africa’s food crisis, Belograd attack, Uganda’s Ebola lockdown, COVID vaccine makers take a hit
123 million: At least 123 million people across Sub-Saharan Africa are food insecure, according to a new report by the International Monetary Fund. The region was on the brink of economic recovery, but that’s changed since the war in Ukraine upended the global economy. IMF senior economist Andrew Tiffin recently spoke to GZERO about Africa’s hunger and energy crises. Watch the interview here.
11: Two men opened fire on Russian soldiers at a training camp in the Belograd region of Russia on Saturday, killing 11 and injuring more than a dozen before being shot and killed. Russia’s Defense Ministry said that the gunmen were from a former Soviet republic, but gave no further details. The shooting, which took place near the Ukrainian border, comes amid mounting opposition to Vladimir Putin’s unpopular "partial mobilization" campaign.
2: Two Ugandan districts outside the capital Kampala have gone into lockdown as the government tries to contain a growing Ebola outbreak. The vaccine developed to inoculate against the Zaire strain, which killed 11,000 people across West Africa from 2013-2016, is not effective against this newer strain, which originated in Sudan.
37: The average price for a COVID vaccine will rise to $37 in 2023, double the average price in 2021, as demand for booster shots slumps. As sales drop off, Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna – vaccine makers that first produced the effective mRna shots – are anticipating big losses.
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Biden team extends eviction moratorium despite SCOTUS ruling
Jon Lieber, Managing Director of the United States for Eurasia Group, shares updates on recent COVID-19 policy developments:
The Biden administration extended an eviction moratorium even after the Supreme Court said they couldn't, what's next?
Well, the CDC imposed a nationwide eviction moratorium in light of increased risk from evicted people because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Supreme Court in June ruled that they (CDC) overextended their authority in doing so and mandated that the moratorium expire on schedule in July. A group of progressive activists weren't happy about this and raised a huge stink in Congress, but Congress recessed for their August vacation before they could solve the problem, putting big pressure on President Biden to extend the moratorium even though he said he didn't think that it would pass constitutional muster. The CDC did it anyway, extending the moratorium until October 3rd, which is a time that's short enough to probably avoid it being overturned by lawsuits, but long enough that Congress has time to figure out how to either extend it on a bipartisan basis or put more money into a rental assistance fund that few people have taken advantage of so far. This whole incident shows the power of progressive activists in the Biden administration who were able to elevate the profile of this issue and potentially prevent millions of people from losing their homes this summer.
The CDC recommended indoor masking even for vaccinated people, but few jurisdictions are following suit. What gives?
Officials at the CDC are very worried about the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, which they say is more infectious and spreads more easily, including from vaccinated people to the rest of the population. CDC guidance now says that areas where there's significant or high levels of transmission should wear masks while they're indoors. But very few jurisdictions are following suit, with only a handful of states that have mask mandates not creating exemptions for vaccinated people. After a year of mixed messages and reversals from the CDC, it looks like some of their authority to deal with and be listened to in the pandemic has gone away, which could be a very big problem for future public health crises. Even the Biden administration went out of their way to counter the message, the implicit message from the CDC that vaccinations were not effective at stopping the coronavirus, by emphasizing the 164 million Americans who are fully vaccinated and the incredibly rare number of breakthrough infections there are in that group. The Biden administration also urged Americans to get vaccinated and they really want to hit this message that once you're vaccinated, you're protected and in theory, you no longer need masks. Vaccines are going to be the only way out of this pandemic for President Joe Biden, these mask mandates aren't effective anymore, partially because people aren't following them. And the CDC is going to have a very tough time going forward.
Bring on the Vaccine Mandate!
Bring on the Vaccine Mandate!
Over the past few weeks, Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations have started to rise yet again in the United States. That looks set to continue, thanks to the Delta variant, which is more transmissible than other variants, and possibly more lethal, too.
Let’s cut to the chase: Unlike before, this is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated. The people being hospitalized and dying are those who haven’t gotten their jabs. These Americans are the reason we’re seeing spikes in states like Mississippi (about 34% vaccinated) while those like Massachusetts (more than 63% vaccinated) aren’t facing the same suffering.
So, here’s my (surely unpopular) opinion: It’s time for the federal government to mandate vaccines. Unless you have a legitimate medical reason to avoid them, you should have to be vaccinated.
Half measures haven’t worked. We’ve tried giving away free stuff, putting famous faces on TV to advertise. New York City has offered free subway passes, which are normally expensive for many people.
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But despite having all the vaccine doses one could hope for, only about 50% of Americans are vaccinated. Canada, whose vaccine program initially lagged, passed us. So has the United Kingdom. The European Union will soon as well, even though the United States has produced and distributed so many of the vaccines they’re using. All the while, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America are crying out for the doses we can't convince some Americans to take.
That's the root of the problem: Americans don’t trust each other or the government enough to get jabbed. Political division, disinformation, and stupidity made a large segment of Americans unwilling to listen to facts, whether they’re coming from Dr. Anthony Fauci or (now pro-vaccine) Republican House leader Steve Scalise or conservative TV star Sean Hannity.
Instead, Americans find conspiracies online and on television. Some believe the vaccine will implant a microchip into your body, or that it causes infertility (it doesn't do either). Some suggest the vaccine itself might be harmful while ignoring the hundreds of thousands of Americans killed by Covid-19. And dishonest social media or television figures, recognizing the potential to win votes and/or pocket cash, have made themselves rich and famous (and now vaccinated!) by pushing fake news about vaccines. It’s also because social media companies haven’t done enough to take down false information because it drives clicks.
This is not an environment in which enough people will change their minds, because to accept the science now is to admit that you and your favorite information sources have been wrong all along.
We’ve lost 600,000 Americans to this disease, and we’re going to lose more. Clearly, the time for convincing people is over. We’re so close to the finish line in the fight against Covid-19, and I believe a little bit of coercion will get us there.
I almost never support taking away people’s liberties. I support gun rights; free speech; gay marriage, marijuana legalization, you name it. I love freedom. But here and now, we're talking about saving huge numbers of American lives.
Not only will vaccine mandates save lives, but they'll also get our economy back on track. They will put people back to work. If too many people remain unvaccinated, the economy will continuously reopen and close as cases spike. That might be fine for the privileged minority that can work from home, but service workers and others who have to show up in the workplace to make a living—many of them among the unvaccinated—will lose cash they desperately need.
I'm not saying we should send anti-vaxxers to jail. Make them pay a fine. Just as Australia levies a $55 (AUD) penalty against those who don’t vote in elections without a valid reason, so too should the US fine those who do not get vaccinated despite having no reason not to.
Is this a restriction of liberty? Yes it is. But so is forcing motorists to carry a driver’s license and fining those who refuse to buckle up. So is telling an 18-year-old soldier he’s not old enough to drink a beer.
After 9/11, we took away a whole host of other liberties. You can’t get on a plane without taking off your shoes or allowing a TSA agent to look at you naked. (Through an x-ray machine, but still!) How about the PATRIOT Act? Thanks to that, the government can read your bank and credit card reports in the name of national security. We did all that to make sure 9/11 didn't happen again—to save a few thousand American lives from terrorism.
A vaccine mandate will save tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives. It makes more sense than a lot of the limits we’ve already imposed and is certainly more important to the nation at large. It's hardly a step toward authoritarianism.
I get why people are skittish, and why nobody wants to demand vaccine mandates. But saving that many lives is worth a small compromise of “liberty.”
And as a patriotic American, I believe it’s my duty to give a damn what happens to other Americans—even those who don’t give a damn about me.
That it’s. Now, what do you think? You can really let me have it by commenting below; I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
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Election injection
Putin's meddling in American elections has taken a creative turn. He now has a plan to help vaccinate Trump against a loss in November!
What We're Watching: UAE-Israel normalization, Lukashenko tightens grip, Philippines to test Putin's vaccine
UAE and Israel strike historic deal: In an historic development, the United Arab Emirates and Israel have agreed to normalize ties. As part of the deal, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to suspend his government's plans to annex swaths of the occupied West Bank in the near term (he made sure to emphasize that the plan was merely on hold, likely a nod to his right-wing base). The peace deal, brokered by the Trump administration, marks the first time that a Gulf Arab state has normalized ties with Israel — though it's widely believed that shared concerns over the threat posed by Iran have led to backchannel cooperation between Israel and the Gulf Arab states. Many analysts, therefore, say that the agreement is largely symbolic, formalizing ties that have existed for years. It's only the third Arab-Israeli peace agreement since Israel's establishment in 1948 (a deal was signed with Egypt in 1978 and with the Kingdom of Jordan in 1994). Two key takeaways: the move gives the Trump administration a big boost before the November 3 elections as he struggles to keep up in the polls. It also reveals that lack of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue will no longer impede powerful Arab states from establishing formal ties with Israel, long the official position of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Is Lukashenko turning the tide? The mass protests that have rocked Belarus since last weekend's rigged election have died down over the past two days, in part because of internet shutdowns and a brutal crackdown by riot police. Factory strikes and some smaller protests against police violence persist, but opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya remains in (possibly forced) exile in neighboring Lithuania, and law enforcement appear to be staying loyal to President Alexander Lukashenko, who has run the country of 9.5 million with an iron fist since 1994. What's more, despite the testy relationship between him and Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin (along with China) appear so far to be still in his corner, while the European Union has threatened to impose further sanctions on Belarus in the near term (though it needs the support of all 27 EU members to do so). Unless the streets can mount a fresh challenge to his rule that undermines the loyalty of his goons and cops, he may well survive this immediate phase of the crisis. Keep an eye on what happens this weekend.
Filipinos to test Putin's vaccine: The Philippines plans to begin testing on its own citizens Russia's new vaccine — dubbed Sputnik V —for the coronavirus in October, after President Rodrigo Duterte accepted an offer to conduct nationwide clinical trials from his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin (presumably in exchange for getting free doses for all 107 million Filipinos once the vaccine is ready for distribution in May 2021). Duterte — who volunteered on live TV to be the first to inject himself with Sputnik V (though he reneged shortly after) — is apparently not concerned about the danger of cutting corners to rush the development of a miracle cure against COVID-19. The Philippines recently overtook Indonesia as the country with the most coronavirus cases in Southeast Asia, amid a second government-mandated partial lockdown of Metro Manila that expires on Sunday. Although Filipinos have yet to have their say on whether they are willing to be tested, popular confidence in mass inoculation is likely to remain low following a botched national vaccination campaign against dengue in 2016 killed several children.
What We're Ignoring
Spain's northwestern Galicia region has banned outdoor smoking — without social distancing — to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Although most scientists believe that smokers can spread COVID-19 droplets when they exhale, it is unlikely that most residents will comply with the restriction in a country where anti-smoking laws and higher prices have failed to curb overall smoking rates, especially among young Spaniards (who are also those most likely to not wear face masks).
Lebanon won't get the billions they need without structural reform
Ian Bremmer shares his perspective on global politics on this week's World In (More Than) 60 Seconds:
The Lebanese government resigns. What's next for Lebanon?
Well, not a lot of money. They need billions. I mean, $3 billion minimum just to rebuild the damage from the explosion, plus the billions because their economy is in freefall, and their banking system sucks, and their sanitation system doesn't work, and they're massively corrupt. And the humanitarian UN conference has thrown a couple hundred million at them, but nowhere near the billions they need. That requires major reform, which is being demanded by the people, and the IMF, and President Macron, who's sort of taking the lead in trying to build some international support for Lebanon. But, you know, a lot of people have problems right now. A lot of people need help. And if the Lebanese government that finally comes together is not more effective at structural reform, which is super challenging in a place that's massively corrupt, well, they're not going to get a lot of money. So this is going to be borne on the backs of Lebanese people. The one thing I will say is it's hard to imagine Hezbollah getting stronger in this environment. They are seen as part of the problem. And maybe this helps shake loose both them and the Iranian influence, which does not help the Lebanese people at all over that country.
Next, what does Jimmy Lai's arrest mean for Hong Kong and the US-China relationship?
Oh, my God. Did you see Apple Media in Hong Kong? I mean, the Chinese are not kidding around. I mean, they sent hundreds of police to arrest him and many of his coworkers and partners and take all of their files, hard and soft, out of that office building. This is ostensibly because he's engaged in traitorous behavior with foreigners, God forbid, supporting the democracy movement of Hong Kong against mainland China. This new national security law is the end of the "one country, two systems" commitment that the Chinese government had made. They do not care. They are massively more economically powerful than Hong Kong. And if that means that Hong Kong can't serve as a global financial center anymore, so be it. It is leading to a lot more backlash against China from the United States, from the UK, from Australia, from a whole bunch of countries around the world. And Xi Jinping just doesn't care. I think there's a level of rally-around-the-flag nationalism that you're seeing in China. As you're seeing in the United States in terms of the recent Taiwanese visit by Secretary of Health and Human Services Azar, the highest level we've seen since 1979. As you've seen in major sanctions coming down against Xinjiang and against Chinese and Hong Kong officials, as well as against TikTok and WeChat. This relationship is getting a lot, a lot uglier.
After Lukashenko's election victory, what kind of change can protesters in Belarus expect?
Well, it's not a victory. The Washington Post is saying "it's a victory," too. I'm seeing all this mainstream press saying that Lukashenko won with 80% of the vote. No. It was illegitimate. They stole the vote. There were irregularities. Opposition members were jailed. The opponent of his has fled the country after being threatened and after being detained for seven hours, and her children, she's in Lithuania. Lukashenko is a dictator. He did not win legitimately. There's been lots of protests on the streets. There's been some violence. There's been a lot of attention from the government and from the army. And the opposition leader has said that she does not want anyone to protest, please go home. She fears for herself and her family's safety, but also fears for the country, because the willingness of the Belarus president to use violence against his people is clearly unchecked. And so, I mean, it's possible that you could get another colored revolution in Belarus the way you had in Ukraine or Georgia or the Kyrgyz Republic, but frankly, it's unlikely. And Lukashenko, one of the least effective, most incapable leaders in the entire former Soviet space, is getting his way in a system that has truly no rule of law.
Russia has a COVID vaccine. What's the story?
Well, they're calling it Sputnik five or Sputnik V, excuse me. It's a V, I'm going Roman numerals, but they're going to V for vaccine, V for victory, V for a Sputnik moment. That's right. The Russians have approved a vaccine for coronavirus. They say it works. They say they're only limited side effects. Putin says one of his daughters has actually taken it, but it hasn't gone through Phase 3 trials. Certainly, no advanced industrial democracy would in any way support it being taken by a broader population. We don't know how effective it is. We don't know the longer-term impact on the population in terms of side effects that can cause more damage than it actually resolves. A dangerous thing, the fact that the geopolitical environment is completely dysfunctional while we have this big crisis just shows you. I mean, what we want is the epidemiological community and governments working together to build vaccines that can be transparent with data that's shared for everyone all over the world. That's how you get out of this economic crisis. Instead, we've got vaccine nationalism with the Russians and Putin wanting to run a victory lap on the back of his own people. Not the first time he's done that, but perhaps the most dangerous. We'll see what happens going forward. But for now, the Russians are taking a vaccine that you would not want to wish on your friends or enemies.
COVID vaccine prospects: former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden is “guardedly optimistic”
Despite being upbeat about progress so far towards developing a COVID-19 vaccine, former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden warns that injecting millions of people who aren't sick with a substance that adversely affects even a small portion of the population could be catastrophic. Even an effective vaccine, in short, won't be a silver bullet. As much as the world would wish it to be true, there will not be a quick conclusion to this global catastrophe.
Quick Take: Cautious COVID optimism, TikTok & China sanctions
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Happy Monday, we are in August, summer, should be taking it a little easier. Coronavirus not taking the stress levels off but hopefully giving people the excuse, if you're not traveling so much, be close with your families, your loved ones and all that. Look, this is not a philosophical conversation, this is a talk about what's happening in the world, a little Quick Take for you.
First of all, you know, I'm getting a little bit more optimistic about the news in the United States right now. Yes, honestly, I am. In part because the caseload is flattening across the country and it's reducing in some of the core states that have seen the greatest explosion in this continuation of the first wave. Yes, the deaths are going up and they should continue to for a couple of weeks because it is a lagging indicator in the United States. But the fact that deaths are going up does not say anything about what's coming in the next few weeks. That tells you what's happened in the last couple of weeks.
What is likely coming is that even in the red states where governors were most opposing wearing masks in a mandatory way and shutting down the economy, they are seeing that they have explosive case transmission and they're changing their behavior. And mask wearing and social distancing in the United States is less about whether you're Republican or Democrat, it's more about is the disease near you and do you feel threatened by it? And as we see it spreading into rural areas and into red states, we're also seeing mask wearing and social distancing going up in those places.
It's not true everywhere and even some governments that are particularly retrograde, Alabama looks really bad, for example, in that regard. But generally, across the country, you're seeing a response to all of those measures. You're also seeing that improved treatment, the fact that high-flow oxygen actually works better than ventilators in some cases, the fact that plasma treatment is becoming more used and more and more widely understood. I mean, all of these things, plus increased testing numbers that the president keeps talking about, is making it easier for the United States to respond effectively to this outbreak. And that means even with much larger caseload that we know about, you're not getting as many hospitalizations, they aren't lasting as long, not as many people are dying. All of that implies to me that where we are going to be in two months' time doesn't feel as bad as where we are right now. Even though the total numbers of deaths, of course, are going up and the best estimates I've seen so far, about 230,000 by Election Day.
There are more explosive cases that are happening in Japan, in France, in Spain, in the United Kingdom, and in Australia, but let's keep in mind that that is from a much, much lower base and the government response, also learning, is becoming quicker and more effective. And the popular response, better educated around the stuff, also effective. So, the impact that's going to have should be smaller than what we saw in the first wave. So, I mean, even without working vaccines, the learning that's going on around this disease, both the learning in terms of science and also learning in terms of governments and people should actually make us get better at handling it. And that makes me more optimistic. When we were talking in March and April and the explosions, we saw first in Italy and the massive mistakes made around hospitals there, which got overwhelmed. In the United States, in the New York City metro area, the massive mistakes that were made around assisted living facilities and bringing people that had cases there and transmission exploded. We're not doing that anymore. So, we're learning in a lot of different ways. The doctors are learning. Governments are learning at the national and local level, and the people are learning. As all of that happens, we're going to get better very quickly responding to this virus. And so even though you're going to see lots and lots of people still get sick, you're not going to see as many serious hospitalizations and not many will die.
The one thing that bothered me the most since we last chatted, are these studies that show that over 50% of people that have gotten the disease, even if they were asymptomatic, have some lasting heart damage because the heart is working a lot harder to respond to the body's needs when the virus comes. It's only one study but the numbers are significant, it's well over a thousand people in it, and it was well reputed, the scientists involved. So, the longer term implications of all of the people that are getting this virus, many of whom don't know it, in terms of whether or not our life expectancies will be of the quality and the length that we want, that actually does really sort of bum me out. And I'm hoping that we learn a lot more about that in the near future.
So, you know, I mean, you think about the fact that, you know, we go into our cars and we've got thousands of sensors and we know exactly when we need brake fluid, we know exactly when we need gas, we know exactly, you know, what kind of maintenance we need, real time, and we wouldn't buy a car otherwise. And you look at our bodies and we have nowhere near that amount of tracking and tracing. And frankly, it's not even because the technology isn't there, it's just because we haven't felt comfortable with it and we also don't really want companies or governments have access to that data. But in this environment where suddenly you are bringing this new disease into a meaningful piece of the global population, and unchecked, it hits everyone, right? You look at India, Mumbai, and some 50% of people tested in the biggest slum, over a million people, very dense population, already have had the disease. Over half. So, herd immunity actually of some form is proven to come there. I mean, the numbers are just, within a year, the numbers are going to be astonishing to think about. And, you know, pretty much everyone is going to have people close to them that are exposed to it. We are going to want to know, long-term what that means for our health, long-term what that means for our ability to live the lives that we had been, you know, personally, emotionally and financially planning for? So, that is a worry.
US-China, the most recent things. First, the TikTok ban, so many people in the media saying this is because Trump is angry at the kids who embarrassed him in Tulsa, he's angry at this comedian that makes all of these really funny TikToks of him speaking. No. I mean, I'm sure he is angry about it, but this has nothing to do with that. It's almost certain that Microsoft or another company will end up picking up TikTok and all those people can still make fun of Trump if they want to on whatever that new app is. No, this is going after China. And let's keep in mind that this is a China where if you want to use Amazon, you want to use Facebook, you want to use Google, tough. You're stuck. You can't do it. You know why? Because they have their own and they won't let the American companies in. And China is the largest data market in the world. So, if they refuse to allow the biggest American firms, the biggest in the world, to participate there, even if the Chinese weren't stealing data for their governmental purposes, even if they had rule of law on intellectual property, why would you let them operate those apps in your market? You would want to have an agreement where you have reciprocity, where if they want to operate the US and you get to operate in China. Until that happens, I'm not very sympathetic to the people saying the US shouldn't be doing anything. And by the way, most American allies are on board with the US on that front.
Also, interesting to see, probably the most significant sanctions so far by the US against China, it's against the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. It is the most important central government sort of corporate entity in Xinjiang, which is the north-west interior part of China, where the Uighurs, the ethnic minority Muslim, have had over a million forced into camps, there has been forced sterilizations, forced cultural integration. It is a horrible, horrible story. And the US is significantly upping the impact in terms of sanctions. It's not clear because there aren't a lot of companies that do direct business in the West with that Xinjiang Production Construction Corp, but there are an enormous amount of firms that do trade, that have inputs that originally come from that company. And that produces much of China's cotton, for example, lots of other things as well. So, a lot of people could be watching very carefully to see what it means and just how broadly those US sanctions are going to apply, whether it's direct or indirect engagement with that entity. If it's indirect, then this is going to be a very significant hit to a lot of Chinese companies and Western companies that really matter, they will have to change business practices and the Chinese will respond and escalate.
So, that one is worth watching. TikTok is done, someone else will buy it. And that is your Quick Take.