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mariedhorne

U.S. Retail Sales Fell 0.7% in December as Covid-19 Cases Rose - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...ronavirus-recovery-11610676272

covid-19 economy

shared by mariedhorne on 18 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Retail sales, a measure of purchases at stores, restaurants and online, declined a seasonally adjusted 0.7% in December from the prior month, the Commerce Department said Friday. That marked the third consecutive month of declines, and November’s retail sales were revised lower to a 1.4% drop, after a stretch of growth last spring and summer.
  • According to the National Retail Federation, holiday sales rose 8.3% compared with the same period a year ago, exceeding the trade group’s estimate of a 3.6% to 5.2% increase. Home-improvement and online retailers posted big gains, while sales at apparel chains and department stores—which historically tend to do well during the season—continued to decline. Holiday sales exclude restaurants, gasoline and auto sales, and measure the year-over-year gains in the combined November-December period.
  • Recent private-sector data suggested a mixed start to this year. NPD Group, which tracks retailers, said Thursday that sales at retailers focused on items such as apparel and personal-care products increased 27% in the week ended Jan. 9—the largest increase in that category since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s tracker of 30 million credit and debit cardholders recorded a 2.7% decline in spending from a year earlier in the week through Jan. 11.
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  • Physical traffic to retail stores fell sharply this holiday season, according to firms that use sensors and cameras to track in-store shopping. Between Nov. 22 and Jan. 2, store traffic dropped 33% year-over-year, according to Sensormatic Solutions, which uses cameras and software to track visits to thousands of malls and shopping centers. By contrast, in November and December online sales grew 32.2% year-over-year to $188.2 billion,
Javier E

GameStop (GME): How WallStreetBets and Robinhood Created Bonkers Stock Market - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...d-created-bonkers-stock-market

stock market market rich inequality speculation

shared by Javier E on 06 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • All of this frenetic investment activity might be a cause for optimism if it seemed connected to a healthier economy. But the stock market and asset prices have been inflating and enriching the world’s wealthiest even as most people have faced greater job instability and slow wage growth.
  • So far the sudden enthusiasm for GameStop’s stock hasn’t done much for the company itself, much less for the employees behind the counters.
  • As Henwood, the writer in Jacobin, has pointed out, surprisingly little of what happens in the stock market is about raising money for companies to make real-world productive investments. Prior to the pandemic, corporations seemed short of ideas for what to do with their cash and often forked it over to their shareholders (and their stock-option-paid executives) by buying back their own stock
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  • There’s been a lot of cheap money floating around in the past decade, thanks to low interest rates and Federal Reserve policy. Much of that has gone into financial assets, jacking up the wealth of those who own them.
  • “Eighty percent of the stock is owned by 20% of the people,” he said. (The reality is actually more extreme than that, with the richest 10% holding 84% of equity wealth, according to economist Edward Wolff.)
  • one of many changes wrought by the pandemic is that it’s shown how aggressive government spending to put cash in ordinary Americans’ pockets can do a lot of good. What if there was an economy where households relied less on wealth trickling down from asset owners? That would be something for Wall Street to be nervous about.
Javier E

Opinion | What Americans Don't Understand About China's Power - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...china-economy-trade.html

china US history power culture

shared by Javier E on 17 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Chinese leaders stretching back to Deng Xiaoping have often thought in terms of decades. A decade encompasses two of China’s famous five-year plans, and it’s a long-enough period to notice real changes in a country’s trajectory.
  • Yes, it still has big problems, including the protests in Hong Kong. But by the standards that matter most to China’s leaders, the country made major gains during the 2010s. Its economy is more diversified. Its scientific community is more advanced, and its surveillance state more powerful. Its position in Asia is stronger. China, in short, has done substantially more to close the gap with the global power that it is chasing — the United States — than seemed likely a decade ago.
  • Incomes, wealth and life expectancy in the United States have stagnated for much of the population, contributing to an angry national mood and exacerbating political divisions. The result is a semidysfunctional government that is eroding many of the country’s largest advantages over China. The United States is skimping on the investments like education, science and infrastructure that helped make it the world’s great power. It is also forfeiting the soft power that has been a core part of American pre-eminence.
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  • The current version of the United States doesn’t seem to know quite what it is — global democratic leader or parochial self-protector — and the confusion benefits China.
  • Instead being fragmented among dozens of apps — one for Starbucks, others for Amazon and airlines and so on — much of Chinese commerce happens within one of two digital networks — WeChat Pay and Alipay. People open one app and can pay for almost anything, in stores or online. The simplicity encourages further retail innovations, and Facebook and Google are trying to mimic this model. It feels like the future of commerce
  • More quietly, though, Nanjing embodies the growth of a middle-class consumer culture. The city’s subway system opened only 14 years ago and now transports one billion riders a year. It’s clean and bustling, and the trips I took each cost either 2 or 3 yuan (about 28 cents or 42 cents). Nationwide, almost 30 other cities have opened subways since Nanjing did, giving China the world’s largest subway ridership.
  • “We Chinese people know very well what we have, what we want and what it takes,” Wang Qishan, China’s vice president, told the conference, the New Economy Forum. “We have the confidence, patience and resolve to realize our goal of great national rejuvenation.”China has now exceeded the world’s expectations for three decades in a row — which, of course, does not guarantee that the streak will continue in this new decade.
anonymous

Why Coronavirus Vaccine Distribution is Taking Longer Than Expected - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ccine-distribution-delays.html

Politics

shared by anonymous on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Health officials and hospitals are struggling with a lack of resources. Holiday staffing and saving doses for nursing homes are also contributing to delays.
  • In Florida, less than one-quarter of delivered coronavirus vaccines have been used, even as older people sat in lawn chairs all night waiting for their shots. In Puerto Rico, last week’s vaccine shipments did not arrive until the workers who would have administered them had left for the Christmas holiday. In California, doctors are worried about whether there will be enough hospital staff members to both administer vaccines and tend to the swelling number of Covid-19 patients.
  • Compounding the challenges, federal officials say they do not fully understand the cause of the delays. But state health officials and hospital leaders throughout the country pointed to several factors. States have held back doses to be given out to their nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities, an effort that is just gearing up and expected to take several months. Across the country, just 8 percent of the doses distributed for use in these facilities have been administered, with two million yet to be given.
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  • We’ve taken the people with the least amount of resources and capacity and asked them to do the hardest part of the vaccination — which is actually getting the vaccines administered into people’s arms,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health.Coronavirus Briefing: An informed guide to the global outbreak, with the latest developments and expert advice.Sign UpFederal and state officials have denied they are to blame for the slow rollout. Officials behind Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to fast-track vaccines, have said that their job was to ensure that vaccines are made available and get shipped out to the states. President Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday that it was “up to the States to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the Federal Government.”“Ultimately, the buck seems to stop with no one,” Dr. Jha said.These problems are especially worrisome now that a new, more contagious variant, first spotted in Britain and overwhelming hospitals there, has arrived in the United States. Officials in two states, Colorado and California, say they have discovered cases of the new variant, and none of the patients had recently traveled, suggesting the variant is already spreading in American communities.The $900 billion relief package that Mr. Trump signed into law on Sunday will bring some relief to struggling state and local health departments. The bill sets aside more than $8 billion for vaccine distribution, on top of the $340 million that the C.D.C. sent out to the states in installments in September and earlier in December.
  • Over all, Maryland has given nearly 17 percent of its vaccine doses. In a Wednesday appearance on CBS, Gov. Larry Hogan attributed the slow process to challenges across the board — from the federal government not sending as many doses as initially predicted, to the lack of logistical and financial support for local health departments.
  • In a news conference on Wednesday, Operation Warp Speed officials said they expected the pace of the rollout to accelerate significantly once pharmacies begin offering vaccines in their stores. The federal government has reached agreements with a number of pharmacy chains — including Costco, Walmart and CVS — to administer vaccines once they become more widely available. So far, 40,000 pharmacy locations have enrolled in that program.
  • But public health officials warned that reaching these initial groups, who are largely being vaccinated where they live or work, is a relatively easy task. “This is the part where we’re supposed to know where people are,” said Dr. Saad B. Omer, the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.
mimiterranova

Contagious Coronavirus Variant Has Spread To Dozens Of Countries : Coronavirus Updates ... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...spreads-to-dozens-of-countries

Health pandemic COVID-19

shared by mimiterranova on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The U.S. has hit another devastating milestone: COVID-19 has killed more than 350,000 people in the country, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.
  • The variant is now in dozens of countries, including the United States, where it has infected people in Colorado, California and Florida.
  • Researchers say the new variant — dubbed B.1.1.7 — probably originated in the South East region of England in Septembe
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  • bly originated in the South East region of England in Septembe
  • The World Health Organization says the new variant is responsible for more than half of new infections in the U.K.
  • And the new version of the virus is already mutating — 17 mutations have been spotted
  • "In the vast majority of cases, these mistakes are harmless or they even weaken the virus," Doucleff said. "But in rare instances, mutations can help the virus — they can give it this little boost, or advantage, over the other versions."
  • The good news is that the new variant doesn't appear to be more deadly. But it is much more contagious — researchers are still trying to determine exactly how much more, but many have estimated it could be 50% more transmissible than the original strain
mimiterranova

U.S. Set To Miss Vaccination Goal As Year Ends : Coronavirus Updates : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...ing-20-million-by-the-new-year

vaccine pandemic

shared by mimiterranova on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Snowstorms, holidays and general inexperience in handling a pandemic response is to blame for a "lag" in the number of Americans so far vaccinated for the coronavirus, according to U.S. officials. The federal government previously estimated that 20 million Americans would receive the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine by the end of the year. But as 2020, a year defined by the coronavirus pandemic, comes to a close on Thursday, the government appears set to fall well short of that goal.
  • The vaccination process started on Dec. 14 with frontline health workers getting the shots first.
  • As of Thursday morning, the agency said that more than 12.4 million doses of Pfizer's and Moderna's two-dose vaccines had been distributed across the country. The CDC reports just 2.7 million people have been vaccinated
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  • More than 340,000 Americans have died from the pandemic, as of Thursday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University.
anonymous

U.S. Officials Say Covid-19 Vaccination Effort Has Lagged - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...vid-vaccines-slow-rollout.html

Politics

shared by anonymous on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • “We know that it should be better, and we’re working hard to make it better,” said Moncef Slaoui, a leader of the federal effort to accelerate vaccine development and distribution.
  • As of Wednesday, more than 14 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had been sent out across the United States, up from 11.4 million doses on Monday morning. But just 2.1 million people had received their first dose as of Monday morning, according to a dashboard maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • When he takes office on Jan. 20, Mr. Biden said, he will use a law called the Defense Production Act to “order private industry to accelerate the making of the materials needed for the vaccines as well as protective gear.” The Trump administration has already used that law to speed manufacturing, however, and Mr. Biden has given few details about how his plan will be any different. He has promised to administer 100 million shots — or enough for about 50 million people if using the two-dose vaccines — in the first 100 days of his term.
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  • The federal government has reached agreements with a number of pharmacy chains — including Costco, Walmart and CVS — to administer vaccines in their stores and other locations once vaccines become more widely available. So far, 40,000 pharmacy locations have enrolled in that program, General Perna said.“What we should be looking at is the rate of acceleration over the coming weeks,” Dr. Slaoui said, “and I hope it will be in the right direction.”
mimiterranova

COVID-19 Cases Surge In U.S. As Vaccinations Fall Below Government Predictions - 0 views

www.npr.org/...icial-to-overturn-georgia-vote

COVID-19 Vaccine Cases Politics

shared by mimiterranova on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • President Trump tweeted Sunday morning that the count of cases and deaths in the U.S. is "far exaggerated" and criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's method.
  • The grim milestones are piling up as the United States experiences another surge in coronavirus cases. Nearly 300,000 new cases were reported on Saturday. The cumulative death toll crossed more than 350,000 the same day, according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard.
  • "The numbers are real," Fauci said. "We have well over 300,000 deaths. We're averaging 2-3,000 deaths per day. ... Those are real numbers, real people and real deaths."
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  • Fauci also spoke about a new, more contagious variant of the coronavirus that has been detected in dozens of countries, including the U.S. "It does not appear to be more virulent, namely making people sicker or greater incidence of dying," Fauci told NBC's Chuck Todd. "Nor does it seem to elude the protection that's offered by the antibodies that are induced by the vaccine."
  • Many people are holding out hope that the COVID-19 vaccines will help quell the pandemic.
  • More than 4.2 million people have received the initial vaccination dose as of Saturday, according to the CDC. That number is far below the government's goal of having 20 million people in the U.S. vaccinated by the end of December.
  • "I want people to understand that the projections we were putting out were based on what we could control at the federal level. And we did deliver on 20 million doses delivered, but you're always going to have more doses allocated versus delivered. Delivered versus shots in arms," Adams said.
  • That approach has led to jammed phone lines, websites crashing and in some cases, people camping out in counties that took a first-come, first-served approach. In terms of what happens next with the booster shot, Zaragovia says Florida residents will have to wait for more information
  • While vaccinations continue, public health officials say it's still important to continue social distancing practices, including wearing masks, washing hands and watching how close people get to others.
  • President-elect Joe Biden opposes the death penalty and has said he will work to end its use, but as President Trump's administration accelerates the pace of federal executions in the closing days of his presidency, activists and progressive lawmakers are feeling more urgency to push Biden to act immediately upon taking office.
  • "Ending the barbaric and inhumane practice of government-sanctioned murder is a commonsense step that you can and must take to save lives," the lawmakers write. "We respectfully urge you to sign an executive order on Day 1 to place an immediate moratorium on the country's cruel use of the death penalty and signal your commitment to dismantle its use altogether."
  • The lawmakers are calling on Biden to "end the federal death penalty" on his first day in office. That's something that he wouldn't be able to do alone. "A U.S. president does not have the power to abolish the federal death penalty," Dunham said. "The only way that the federal death penalty can be abolished is an act of Congress signed by a president, or from a court decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. It's clear from the current composition of the Supreme Court that that's not going to happen, so the only way that the Biden administration would be able to end the federal death penalty would be to have some sort of bipartisan support in Congress."
anonymous

COVID-19 Case Numbers Up In Almost Every State; Lawmakers May Have Been Exposed : Coron... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...apitol-siege-put-members-at-ri

shared by anonymous on 10 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Congress that if the U.S. didn't get the coronavirus outbreak under control, the country could see 100,000 new cases per day.
  • Six months later, the U.S. is adding, on average, more than 271,000 new cases per day,
  • Over the past 24 hours, 3,700 new deaths were recorded.
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  • That brings the total number of reported cases in the U.S. to more than 22 million since the start of the outbreak — with a death toll of 373,000.
  • And many members of Congress are now at heightened risk for contracting the coronavirus. When many House lawmakers sheltered in place in a committee hearing room as the pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol last week, they may have been exposed to someone infected with the virus,
  • Coronavirus vaccines are rolling out, but not quickly enough to stem the surge. The Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed fell far short of its goal of immunizing 20 million people by the end of 2020. As of Friday, 6.6 million people had received their first dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • Whereas earlier in the pandemic, one could easily point to specific hot spots, the virus is now surging in most states across the country. Daily new cases are increasing in almost every state
  • Health officials say things will get worse before they get better. A new more contagious variant of the coronavirus, first spotted in the U.K., has now been reported in several states — leading some to wonder whether the new variant will come to dominate new U.S. infections.
  • In Southern California, medical troops have arrived to bolster overwhelmed hospital staffs — mostly Air Force nurses and Army medics, the Los Angeles ABC affiliate reports. Temporary morgues have also been set up in parking lots to store the bodies of COVID-19 victims.
  • Several Republican members of Congress refused to wear masks while sheltering with others Wednesday. Video shot from inside one room shows Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., offering blue surgical masks to six Republican lawmakers. They all declined.
  • The incoming Biden administration announced on Friday it would distribute doses that the government has been holding back for millions of second doses.
  • States are struggling to meet demand for the vaccines.
  • Some states aren't vetting vaccine recipients to ensure they're eligible, instead relying on the honor system.
ethanshilling

U.S. to Declare Yemen's Houthis a Terrorist Group, Raising Fears of Fueling a Famine - ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...n-houthis-terrorist-group.html

Politics terrorist crisis

shared by ethanshilling on 11 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will designate the Houthi rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization
  • It is not clear how the terrorist designation will inhibit the Houthi rebels, who have been at war with the Saudi-backed government in Yemen for nearly six years but, some analysts say, pose no direct threat to the United States.
  • Mr. Pompeo will announce the designation in his last full week as secretary of state, and more than a month after meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who began a military intervention with Arab allies against the Houthis in 2015.
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  • The Houthis’ inclusion on the department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations means that fighters within the relatively decentralized movement will be cut off from financial support and other material resources that are routed through U.S. banks or other American institutions.
  • But the Houthis’ main patron is Iran, which continues to send support despite being hobbled by severe U.S. economic sanctions
  • Experts said it would chill humanitarian efforts to donate food and medicine to Houthi-controlled areas in northern and western Yemen
  • The United Nations estimates that about 80 percent of Yemenis depend on food assistance, and nearly half of all children suffer stunted growth because of malnutrition.
  • “I urge all those with influence to act urgently on these issues to stave off catastrophe, and I also request that everyone avoids taking any action that could make the already dire situation even worse,” Mr. Guterres said then.
  • The United States accuses the Houthi rebels of being proxy fighters for Iran
  • In October, the rebels released two American hostages and the remains of a third in a prisoner swap that also allowed about 240 Houthis to return to Yemen from Oman.
  • Beyond the looming famine, the terrorist designation could also seal the fate of an immense rusting oil tanker moored off Yemen’s western coast.
  • “If we do not want to cause Yemen to lose an entire generation,” Mr. Ralby said, “we need to back off this designation.”
lmunch

US coronavirus death toll surpasses 350,000 as experts anticipate post-holiday surge | ... - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...toll-350000-post-holiday-surge

Trump Pandemic culture

shared by lmunch on 03 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The coronavirus death toll in the United States surpassed 350,000 early Sunday, as experts anticipate another surge in cases and fatalities stemming from Christmas and New Year’s holiday gatherings. Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University showed the U.S. passed the threshold early Sunday morning. More than 20 million people in the country have been infected.
  • Top officials in charge of the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed had set a goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by the end of 2020. But according to a count by Bloomberg News, as of Saturday night nearly 4.3 million vaccines had been administered in the U.S. to 1.3% of the population.
  • Additionally, three states -- Florida, Colorado, and California -- have reported cases of the new COVID-19 variant first seen in the United Kingdom. The strain is said to be more contagious and prompted travel bans and further restrictions in Britain.
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  • President Trump, however, countered that the coronavirus numbers are "far exaggerated," as he criticized the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "ridiculous method of determination" in a Sunday morning tweet.
  • Meanwhile, influenza disease has been linked to between 140,000-810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000-61,000 deaths annually since 2010, according to estimates from the CDC. Between 2019 and 2020, an estimated 22,000 people died in the U.S. after contracting influenza, and an estimated 400,000 people were hospitalized with the disease.
martinelligi

Wisconsin Health Executive Says Vaccine Rollout 'Tested The Nimbleness' Of System : Cor... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...ested-the-nimbleness-of-system

vaccine pandemic

shared by martinelligi on 11 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • It's been a month since the first COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for emergency use in the U.S. At the time, Dr. Jeff Bahr, who oversees medical group operations for Advocate Aurora Health system in Wisconsin, told NPR that he was optimistic about vaccine rollout.
  • On a national level, vaccinations fell short of initial expectations in the first weeks: Of about 25 million doses distributed, slightly more than one-third have been administered.
xaviermcelderry

Covid in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...coronavirus-us-cases.html

Covid pandemic

shared by xaviermcelderry on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • At least 848 new coronavirus deaths and 84,285 new cases were reported in the United States on Oct. 31. Over the past week, there have been an average of 80,755 cases per day, an increase of 43 percent from the average two weeks earlier.
  • more than 9,248,500 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 230,700 have died, according to a New York Times database.
  • Deaths, though still well below their peak spring levels, averaged more than 800 per day at the end of October, far more than were reported in early July.
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  • In late February, there were just a few dozen known cases in the United States, most of them linked to travel. But by summer, the virus had torn through every state, infecting more people than the combined populations of Connecticut and Oklahoma. And in the fall, the national death toll exceeded 230,000, more than the population of Boise, Idaho.
  • American life has been fundamentally reordered because of the virus. Concerts, parades and high school football games continue to be called off. Countless people have found themselves jobless and struggling to afford housing. Many schools and colleges have held few or no in-person classes this fall. More than 214,000 cases have been linked to colleges and universities over the course of the pandemic. Thousands more cases have been identified in elementary, middle and high schools.
  • The Times’s data collection for this page is based on reports from state and local health agencies, a process that is unchanged by the Trump administration's requirement that hospitals bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all patient information to a central database in Washington.
  • The Northeast experienced the worst this spring, as temporary morgues were deployed in New York City. Over the summer, cases spiked across the Sun Belt, prompting many states to tighten restrictions just weeks after reopening. By fall, the virus was filling rural hospitals in the Midwest and West as it devastated communities that had for months avoided the pandemic’s worst.
  • In Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago, more than 5,400 people have died. In Los Angeles County, Calif., more than 300,000 people have had the virus, more than in most states. And in New York City, about one of every 352 residents has died.
  • Coronavirus cases have been reported in more than 23,000 nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to data collected by The New York Times from states, counties, the federal government and facilities themselves. More than 581,000 residents and employees of those homes have been infected, and more than 87,000 have died. That means more than 35 percent of deaths from the virus in the United States have been tied to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
  • In July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than 16,000 infections and 86 deaths tied to meat and poultry processing. But those numbers are almost certainly an undercount. Only 28 states provided data to the C.D.C., and many states and food processing companies have refused to provide case totals. Other large outbreaks have emerged on farms, in fruit or vegetable processing facilities and at plants where pet food is made.
mimiterranova

U.S. Hits New Coronavirus Record With More Than 88,500 New Cases : Coronavirus Updates ... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...ith-more-than-88-500-new-cases

us health pandemic crisis covid

shared by mimiterranova on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • The U.S. recorded 88,521 new coronavirus cases Thursday, more than any other day in the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
  • More than a third of U.S. states have reported 10,000 or more cases in the past seven days, according to the CDC, and that list comprises a broad section of the country.
  • In another alarming trend, U.S. hospitals were treating more than 46,000 COVID-19 patients on Thursday, the COVID Tracking Project says.
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  • Seven days earlier, about 41,000 people were hospitalized in the U.S. The hospitalization rate has risen sharply since September, when it hovered around 30,000 new patients on many days.
  • The U.S. is now poised to report a total of 9 million coronavirus cases, the most in the world. This week, India joined the U.S. as the only two countries with more than 8 million confirmed cases.
mariedhorne

U.S. Economy Recovered Significant Ground in Record Third-Quarter GDP Rebound - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...third-quarter-2020-11603908566

economy pandemic crisis

shared by mariedhorne on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • The increase in growth, the biggest jump in records dating to 1947, followed a record decline earlier in the pandemic when the virus disrupted business activity across the country
  • That puts the economy about 3.5% smaller than at the end of last year, before the pandemic hit.
  • The third-quarter GDP increase followed a 9% quarter-to-quarter decline in the second quarter, or a 31.4% annualized drop, adjusted for inflation and seasonal fluctuations. U.S. GDP is normally reported at an annual rate, or as if the quarter’s pace of growth continued for a full year.
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  • The number of workers filing initial claims for unemployment insurance fell by 40,000 to 751,000 last week to the lowest level since the pandemic began, suggesting layoffs are easing despite a rise in coronavirus infections. The U.S. as of September has recovered about half of the 22 million jobs lost in March and April, at the beginning of the pandemic.
  • which reflects business spending on software, research and development, equipment and structures—rose at a 20.3% annual rate. Spending on equipment rose, although spending on structures, a category tied to the struggling oil and gas sector and commercial real estate, fell at a 14.6% annual rate.
  • JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s tracker of credit and debit-card transactions showed that spending was down 5.2% from a year earlier in the week through Oct. 25.
  • Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic output, increased at a 40.7% annual rate in the third quarter.
  • On average they expect that the economy will contract 3.6% this year, measured from the fourth quarter of 2019.
  • Third-quarter revenue is up 44% from a year earlier, following an initial drop in business in March and April when customers were reluctant to have work crews in their homes, he said.
rerobinson03

Did President Trump Keep His First-Term Promises? Let's Look at 5 of Them - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-first-term-promises.html

shared by rerobinson03 on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Has he kept the promises that helped get him here? And do his supporters care? A recent survey from New York University found that those who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 thought he had broken fewer than one promise out of five. Those who voted for Hillary Clinton said he broke more than four out of five.
  • In reality, Mr. Trump has broken about half of 100 campaign promises, according to a tracker by PolitiFact. T
  • Supporters of Mr. Trump who spoke to The New York Times said overwhelmingly that they were pleased with how he had lived up to his pledges. Here’s a look at how he fared on some of his signature promises.
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  • Over the past four years, the Trump administration had constructed 371 miles of border barriers, as of Oct 16. And it is on pace to reach 400 miles next week. However, all but 16 miles of the new barriers replace or reinforce existing structures.
  • Alan Sanchez, 57, a defense contractor from Maricopa, Ariz., conceded that the president did not get it done. But he said he did what he could.
  • The yearslong Republican campaign to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act came to a head unsuccessfully and dramatically in the first year of Mr. Trump’s presidency, when Senator John McCain of Arizona cast the decisive vote against the effort.
  • His campaign boasts that he has flipped the balance of three federal appeals courts and shifted nine appeals courts to the right. His nomination of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the weeks before the election could reshape abortion rights, immigration law and the government’s regulatory power. Confirming a Supreme Court justice so close to an election was unprecedented, and Democrats framed it as an illegitimate power grab by Republicans.
  • The Department of Homeland Security has argued that the new barriers have reduced the personnel needed to staff certain sectors, and reduced unauthorized immigration. In Mr. Trump’s first year in office, illegal border crossings did decline to the lowest point since the 1970s, but then increased to the highest point in a decade in the 2019 fiscal year before decreasing again this year during the pandemic.
  • The 2017 tax cuts are one of the biggest legislative achievements of Mr. Trump’s first term in office, and one celebrated by his supporters.
  • Some critics, however, have noted that the final tax cut that Mr. Trump signed into law was far smaller than what he promised as a candidate. The Tax Policy Center, run by the Brookings Institution, estimated that it was only one-quarter the size of the plan Mr. Trump campaigned on four years ago
  • Mr. Trump said he would cut the top corporate income tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent, for example. His final bill brought it down to 21 percent.Those nuances, however, have been left out of his rallies, where Mr. Trump has been telling his supporters (falsely) that he succeeded in passing the “biggest tax cut in history.”
  • While most Americans got a tax cut, high earners received 60 percent of the total tax savings.
  • He vowed to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement or withdraw from it entirely, pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and raise tariffs.He has delivered on those promises.
  • Though some experts are skeptical that Mr. Trump’s trade policies have been economically beneficial — with the conservative Tax Foundation estimating that the tariffs have brought in revenue, but reduced wages, gross domestic product and job growth — supporters have been delighted.
cartergramiak

Which States Have Certified Presidential Vote Totals - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ion-certification-tracker.html

US history politics trump election

shared by cartergramiak on 24 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • 91 of 306 electoral votes certified so far for Joseph R. Biden Jr.
  • The results reported right after the presidential election are reliable, but they are not official. The official results will arrive in the coming weeks, after a process called certification.
  • This starts at the county or municipal level, and then a state official or board must review the local certifications and certify the statewide totals. In presidential races, if states certify their results by the so-called safe harbor deadline — this year, it’s Dec. 8 — those results are largely insulated from further challenges.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • In some states, every county may have certified its results already, but it won’t be listed as complete until the state canvassers sign off.
Javier E

Opinion | Political Incompetence Can Be as Deadly as Covid-19 - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...pain-pandemic-second-wave.html

spain pandemic politics

shared by Javier E on 24 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • Spaniards patiently accepted the toughest confinement in Europe during the first wave of the virus in March, enduring serious economic losses in exchange for protecting the lives of their elders and the most vulnerable. We have been among the most disciplined in adhering to regulations like wearing masks, which are used by more than 84 percent of the population.
  • Before this second wave, there was plenty of time to put in place measures that have shown their effectiveness in Asian countries and have lessened the impact of the pandemic in closer ones, such as Portugal. But our politicians decided to ignore them: Health care systems were not fortified, plans were not made for the reopening of schools, and the tracking system recommended by all the experts was not put into place.
  • One of the keys to slowing the spread of the virus is to perform polymerase chain reaction testing on as many people as possible who have been in contact with infected people. But the average number of potential cases that Spain manages to trace is lower than Zambia (9.7 for every confirmed Covid-19 case), one-fourth that of Italy (37.5) and one-twentieth of Finland (185).
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Our politicians have little incentive to strive for excellence, because they know that Spaniards’ loyalty to their parties rivals their loyalty to their favorite soccer teams. Ideology and partisanship carry more weight at the polls than the candidates’ preparation, honesty and experience, sending them the message that their success doesn’t depend on their management or the results they obtain
  • Our political parties have become organizations that are hermetically closed to outside talent. Spaniards do not elect individual candidates, but choose a regional party list with candidates selected by the parties in a process where intrigue and relationships count more than competence.
  • Only 36 percent of Congress members in 2018 declared that they had ever worked in the private sector.
  • New York and Madrid were in similar situations in June. After initially being hard-hit by the coronavirus, both cities seemed to have the pandemic under control. Since then, the region of Madrid has seen cases multiply to 772 per 100,000 inhabitants while New York has kept the situation under control with 28 infections per 100,000 inhabitants. There is no mystery here either: The difference is explained by the number of trackers, hospital support, prudent reopening of businesses, and tests.
  • It is crucial that Spain reform electoral law so that voters choose their representatives directly, rethink the territorial organization that has caused a lack of coordination among regions, and strengthen the independence of the government institutions, which are filled with politicians who offer blind loyalty to their political parties.
hannahcarter11

Live Breonna Taylor News Tracker: Suspect Charged in Shooting of 2 Officers - The New Y... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...lor-decision-live-updates.html

breonna suspect charged shooting louisville history crisis

shared by hannahcarter11 on 24 Sep 20 - No Cached
    • hannahcarter11
      hannahcarter11 on 24 Sep 20
       
      So terrible that a literal wall matters more than Breonna's life. While the shooting was reckless period, the officers should've been charged about her murder.
  • plans to plead not guilty to the charges in the indictment
  • Breonna Taylor’s case as both the tragic death of a young woman, and the continuation of a long pattern of devaluation and violence that Black women and men face in our country, as they have historically,
  • ...16 more annotations...
    • hannahcarter11
      hannahcarter11 on 24 Sep 20
       
      It's astonishing how they're so quick to attempt to arrest the person who shot the police officers yet have done everything to not face the consequences for their own actions.
  • “We need our whole city to come out,”
  • Ms. Helm said that she was nervous for the safety of protesters, especially after seeing the significant law enforcement presence that was patrolling Louisville on Wednesday evening
  • Shortly after midnight, the police declared the protest unlawful and ordered people to disperse.
  • Anger over Ms. Taylor’s killing and the prosecutors’ handling of the case has spread far from Louisville, with protests on Wednesday night drawing crowds in New York, Chicago and Seattle. Some rallies, like those in Portland, Maine, and Memphis, were small but vocal.
  • “There are Breonnas everywhere.”
  • the people want justice even if the system doesn’t,
  • “I don’t want this incident to get swept under the rug and everybody forgets about all the innocent lives that have been taken
  • female athletes have been instrumental in directing attention to the investigation.
  • This isn’t a bad apple, it’s a rotten tree.”
  • The lack of a murder or manslaughter indictment against any of the officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor was an outrage to many — but not a surprise.
  • A grand jury indicted a former Louisville police detective on Wednesday for endangering Breonna Taylor’s neighbors with reckless gunfire during a raid on her apartment in March, but the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor were not charged in her death.
  • Three officers fired a total of 32 shots
  • Ms. Taylor’s name and image have become part of the national movement over racial injustice since May, with celebrities writing open letters and erecting billboards that demanded the white officers be criminally charged.
  • Angry demonstrators took to the streets on Wednesday after a Kentucky grand jury did not charge police officers with killing Ms. Taylor. A suspect was in custody, accused of shooting two Louisville officers.
  • The city erupted in angry demonstrations Wednesday after a grand jury decided not to bring charges against the police officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor during a botched nighttime raid on her apartment in March.
katherineharron

US coronavirus: America is at a crossroads in this pandemic as Covid-19 deaths near 500... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

covid

shared by katherineharron on 22 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • On the brink of a devastating milestone -- 500,000 US Covid-19 deaths -- the US is at a crossroads in the course of this pandemic.
  • And while vaccinations slowly increase, some Americans say they won't get a Covid-19 vaccine -- hurting the chances of herd immunity and hindering a return to normal life.
  • More than 43.6 million Americans have received at least one dose of their two-dose vaccines, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. close dialogCovid-19Your local resource.Set your location and log in to find local resources and information on Covid-19 in your area.Please enter aboveSet Locationclose dialog/* effects for .bx-campaign-1191325 *//* custom css .bx-campaign-1191325 *//* custom css from creative 50769 */.bx-custom.bx-campaign-1191325 .bx-row-validation .bx-input {border-color: white !important;border-width: 1px !important;background-color: white !important;box-shadow: 0px 2px 8px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.12) !important;}.bx-custom.bx-campaign-1191325 .bx-row-validation .bx-vtext { color: #e53841 !important; font-size: 11px !important; position: absolute !important; bottom: -1.8em !important;} @media screen and (max-width:736px) { .bx-custom.bx-campaign-1191325 .bx-row-validation .bx-vtext {font-size: 10px !important; }}.bx-custom.bx-campaign-1191325 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  • ...15 more annotations...
  • About 18.8 million have been fully vaccinated. That's about 5.7% of the US population -- far less than the estimated 70% to 85% of Americans who would need to be immune to reach herd immunity.
  • To speed up vaccinations, some experts have suggested delaying second vaccine doses to get more first doses into people's arms.
  • Both vaccines on the US market -- developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna -- require two doses, the second of which are intended to be administered 21 days and 28 days after the first, respectively.
  • Nationwide, the rates of new Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are declining.The number of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 has fallen for the 40th day in a row, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
  • Fauci hopes that doesn't happen, he said, adding it's "possible" people may be wearing masks in 2022.
  • And daily new cases have dropped 23% over the same time period, according to Johns Hopkins. (But testing is also down by 17%, according to the COVID Tracking Project.)
  • About 1,700 cases of variant strains first spotted in the UK, South Africa and Brazil have been reported in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • Experts with the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said over the weekend that while the B.1.1.7 strain likely accounts for less than 20% of current infections in the US, that number will likely soar to 80% by late April.
  • "Managing the epidemic in the next four months depends critically on scaling up vaccination, trying to increase the fraction of adults willing to be vaccinated above three-quarters, and strongly encouraging continued mask use and avoiding situations where transmission is likely, such as indoor dining, going to bars, or indoor gatherings with individuals outside the household," the team wrote.
  • "With new, more contagious variants of the virus circulating throughout the U.S., now is not the time to let your guard down and scale back on the measures that we know will work to prevent further illness and deaths -- wearing masks, practicing physical distancing, and washing hands," a joint statement said.
  • Daily deaths have declined 24% this past week compared to the previous week
  • "I do think we're looking at some new normals. I think the handshake, for example, is probably going away," she said."I do think masks in the cough/cold/flu season in the winter months would make a lot of sense. That clearly, really insulated the Southeast Asian countries from some of the worst of this, understanding the importance of wearing masks."
  • "It's estimated that about 70% of Americans must be vaccinated before we get to herd immunity through vaccination," CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen said. "That's the point where enough people have the immune protection that the virus won't spread anymore."
  • "The evidence was pretty compelling by last March or April that uniform wearing of masks would reduce transmission of this disease," National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins told Axios on HBO on Sunday.
  • "A mask is nothing more than a life-saving medical device, and yet it got categorized in all sorts of other ways that were not factual, not scientific and frankly, dangerous," he added. "And I think you can make a case that tens of thousands of people died as a result."
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