Wrap of the Week: 2020-05-15

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What in the World has been going on?

USA

It’s time to break down our global predictions for the spread of coronavirus this week and take a closer look at what’s been going on around the world.

This week in the US the number of confirmed cases has reached 1,459, 684 with a total of 86,970 fatalities in the country. as numbers continue to rise and the peak doesn’t yet seem to be in sight, instead of reaching for a cure the government is pointing to a conspiracy. Donald Trump is agitating for the US to re-open and the American right is supporting this decision by seemingly denying the rising death toll altogether. The rightwing media has been pushing the idea for weeks that hospitals, coroners and medical professionals across the US have been mislabelling deaths. The President is a number one skeptic when it comes to questioning the reported case numbers, however, this doesn’t come as a surprise since he has under-predicted the numbers since the start of the outbreak. In February he said there would soon be “close to zero” cases, meanwhile on 20 April he suggested “50 to 60,000” could die. The US passed that figure nine days later. However, despite the government’s best efforts to get the economy back on track scattered business re-openings around the US have not halted the flood of layoffs, with the government reporting that nearly three million people filed new unemployment claims last week, bringing the two-month tally to more than 36 million.

In terms of where the cases are originating, almost half the current Covid-19 hotspots in the US are linked to meat processing plants where poultry, pigs and cattle are slaughtered and packaged. These locations have led to the virus spiking in many small towns and prompted calls for urgent reforms to an industry beset by health and safety problems. At least 12 of the 25 hotspots in the US – counties with the highest per-capita infection rates – originated in meat factories where employees work side by side in cramped conditions. Meat processing plants seem to have emerged as incubators for the coronavirus, which has spread rapidly among workers unable to perform physical distancing.

Illinois has been at the top of our list for the USA this week for the highest predicted risk, but apparently the Chicago region is now on track to move to the next phase of re-opening planned for May 29. However, the overall number of known cases has reached 87,937 this week with a total of 3,928 deaths, begging the question of if the state is moving to re-open too soon. Our predictions clearly don’t agree that Illinois is making the right call

Meanwhile in New Jersey which is second on our list, almost 10,000 residents have been killed by Covid-19 since the first case was uncovered by state officials on March 4. With the exception of New York, no state has been hit harder by coronavirus. New York has been gradually falling down the list of our US predictions so hopefully what we are seeing is a pattern indicating that the peak there has been reached. Maryland on the other hand is not faring quite as well and a total of 1,748 people have died, with an increase of 1,091 cases since Wednesday.

Europe

Europe has been off our top 10 global list for a while now, with the exception of Sweden, and it seems they have a new goal: Reopening borders in time for tourism. The European Commission has recommended that borders re-open for the summer. Cross-border vacation travel had been expected to generate 1.3 billion euros in spending in 2020 before the border lockdowns. In southern member states, income generated by tourism accounts for as much as 20% of their economies. But recommendations from the commission are not binding. And restrictions remain in place for Italy and Spain, the bloc’s hardest-hit members. That leaves European Union countries to create a patchwork of policies. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer of Germany said that together with Austria, France and Switzerland, his country would begin easing border restrictions on Saturday, with the aim of lifting them entirely by June 15.

In the UK the numbers continue to rise with 33,614 reported deaths due to the coronavirus. There has been medical development though with Babylon Health now offering a new finger-prick blood test that identifies people previously infected with the coronavirus, available to anyone in the UK for £69. The results , however, are not immediate and need to be sent to a laboratory, and also experts are also stressing that for the time being at least there’s no way to tell if having antibodies to the virus means you have immunity, and whether or not you can pass the virus on to other people.

Politically speaking the virus is throwing the UK back into one of the country’s most bitter political debates: Can the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland survive as a union of four nations? Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the nation last Sunday with his plan for the UK to emerge from lockdown. The country’s message has now been shifted from the simple "Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives" to the more ambiguous "Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives." But before Johnson's message was even broadcast, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon delivered her own address. Sturgeon said the Scottish government had "not yet seen the full detail of the plan, so it's not possible for us to simply adopt it for Scotland," and that she had asked Downing Street "not to deploy their 'Stay Alert' advertising campaign in Scotland." The message there was still clearly to "stay home." In doing so, she revealed the uncomfortable reality that Johnson has little practical power over the people living in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Sweden

In Sweden this week we have seen Uppsala jump up and down the prediction list much as it has done for the past few months. Why this is could be due to several factors such as it being a large university town and the fourth largest city in Sweden, close to the country’s largest airport, so naturally would incur a lot of moving traffic. However, as a whole the country (despite the criticism received from abroad) has managed to keep the spread of the virus relatively low in comparison to the UK and US. The total number of fatalities as of the end of this week is 3,646. Interestingly although we are aware that regulations in this country are lax, there is a reluctance to enforce wearing face masks in public despite the latest advice from the European Commission. You’re obviously allowed to wear one but guideline state they are “not needed in everyday life”. Swedish health authorities argue that keeping a distance, washing your hands, not touching your face, and staying at home if you experience any symptoms are still the best ways to halt the spread of the coronavirus. There is a concern that wearing face masks would make people follow these guidelines less strictly.

In more positive news there is seemingly a link between self-imposed quarantine and the rate of crime in Sweden, and on the whole there were fewer crimes reported in March and April this year compared to 2019 with a drop of 4-5%. In Stockholm, the epicentre of the epidemic in Sweden, crime dropped by seven percent in both months.

Decline

Italy, Germany & Denmark on are still on the decline. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte plans to allow citizens to move freely within Italy starting on June 3, a key step in his effort to reopen the country after more than two months of lockdown. Retail stores and other businesses will reopen on Monday, according to a draft decree obtained by Bloomberg. France is also doing well in the fall out from being ravaged by the pandemic early on, and the French drug giant Sanofi seems to be working on a vaccine. However, a government official in France has said it would be unacceptable for the US to have any early access to the vaccine after Sanofi’s chief executive suggested that America would be the first in line because it helped finance the research.

South America

Brazil

In South America this week Brazil has remained at the highest risk of predicted spread, as well as being number 2 in the global predictions. The number of coronavirus infections in Brazil has risen to more than 200,000, while it registered a daily record of 13,944 new cases on Thursday. Total fatalities are at 14,059 but President Jair Bolsonaro continues to push state governors to ease lockdowns and open the economy. In the region, Argentina is slowly lifting its lockdown but Peru is reeling from a rising number of infections despite imposing movement curbs. We can see the outbreak in Peru predicted in our maps from the previous couple fo weeks, the storm was coming. Ecuador has been behind Brazil in our predictions with a current death count of 2,338 and rising also.

Mexico

Mexico has more deaths than Ecuador and Peru a total of 4,477, but the reason they have been predicted consistently behind the other nations is because they look to be reaching their peak. Officials have said that the country has recorded it largest one-day rise in cases so far. More than 2,409 new cases of the virus were confirmed on Thursday - the first time this figure has exceeded 2,000. The total number of confirmed cases in the country is now more than 40,000. The grim milestone comes amid preparations to ease lockdown measures and reopen the economy, particularly factories near the border with the US. Assistant Health Secretary Hugo López-Gatell - an epidemiologist and Mexico's coronavirus tsar - described this as "the most difficult moment of the first wave of the epidemic”.

Africa

Egypt

Nigeria is no longer at the top of list for African countries at most predicted risk of spread, and has been replaced by Egypt whose current death toll is 571 people. This prediction is arising at the exact time that the country is looking to enter their three phase plan to re-open from lockdown. The plan does not yet specify when the first phase will start, though it is expected that an announcement will happen soon. The first phase, which will see more strict measures, will go on until the total number of coronavirus cases faces a downward trend for at least two weeks. The second phase will gradually see an ease in restrictions and start after 2 weeks of a reduction in cases and will go on for 28 days. The third phase will have the lightest precautions and continue until there are further announcements by the World Health Organization.

Nigeria

Nigeria has dropped to spot number two in our predictions, and despite it’s time at the top thankfully never really experienced a huge boom in cases. Their current number for confirmed cases is 5,162 and 167 deaths, which is surprisingly low for the most populated country in the continent but it’s most likely that the worst isn’t over yet. Half of the confirmed Covid-19 infections in Nigeria are in Lagos. The rate of new cases across the country is accelerating, doubling in the last 10 days. But in the minds of many local people, the virus itself is less of a risk than its effects on daily life. In fact, people are apparently not scared of coronavirus, but the thing they are scared of is hunger.

Read about the life in the slums of Orile in Nigeria during coronavirus: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/15/people-are-more-scared-of-hunger-coronavirus-is-just-one-more-threat-in-nigeria

Morocco

Morocco has been fifth on the list for Africa despite having a higher number of confirmed cases and fatalities than Nigeria. It seems to be a comparable situation to Mexico, where the peak has simply been reached earlier than other countries.

Asia

Indonesia

Indonesia has now been at the top of the world list for several weeks. Their number of deaths compared to the number of confirmed cases is relatively low and in relation to other nations faring badly such as the UK and the US it might come as a surprise to why they have the highest predicted risk of coronavirus spread. However, the country is taking the virus extremely seriously and Indonesia’s most populous island of Java has become the country’s epicentre of the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, prompting calls for heightened containment efforts, including by imposing large-scale social restrictions in the entire region. All six provinces on the island, home to some 151 million people and covers just 7 percent of the archipelago’s area, have become red zones for covid-19 infections.

In related news A 40-year-old missionary from Maryland was killed Tuesday while delivering much-needed coronavirus test kits to a remote village in Indonesia, according to officials. Joyce Lin, a Kodiak pilot and IT specialist for Idaho-based Mission Aviation Fellowship, reported an emergency minutes after taking off from Sentani International Airport in Papua, the country's easternmost province, early in the morning when her aircraft crashed into a lake.

China

China has been at the top of our list for countries with a predicted decline in coronavirus cases for several weeks. Checking back in on the situation the current number of confirmed cases are 82,933 with 4,633 fatalities. They have been under a lot of scrutiny both at the start of the pandemic, and now their actions on the tail end of the breakout are being analysed as well. China has turned its factories back on after bringing the coronavirus outbreak largely under control within its borders. The question now is who will buy the goods those factories make?

Industrial production surged last month in China more than twice as fast as most economists expected, according to official data released on Friday by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics. But retail sales fell even more sharply than anticipated, while orders for future exports from China have stalled. Chinese officials are starting to acknowledge a mismatch as the economy reopens. The world is watching China’s economic performance closely. It is a couple months ahead of the rest of the world in coping with the virus and then trying to reopen businesses. Its successes or stumbles could offer lessons to others.

South Korea

South Korea has been just behind China in the decline predictions despite never having that much fallout from the virus initially anyways which is amazing. Their current death count is 260, however, the world is still keeping an eye on the situation as fears of a second strike are rumoured after the new cluster of cases was detected in Seoul May 8th and a new death was reported.