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New restaurant owners get shut out of PPP loans despite their financial losses

InternationalFeb 07. 2021Andrew Darneille, owner and pitmaster at Smokecraft Modern Barbecue in Arlington. MUST CREDIT: photo for The Washington Post by Deb Lindsey.

By The Washington Post · Tim Carman

Every month, Andrew Darneille says his Smokecraft Modern Barbecue in Arlington, Va., has been losing between $15,000 and $20,000, and the numbers would be uglier if not for breaks from his bank and landlord. December was the worst yet: The owner and pitmaster says he suffered $30,000 in losses, even with a skeleton crew and a separate ghost kitchen selling fried chicken sandwiches.

With no bank loans available to bridge the gap, Darneille and his family have been covering the monthly shortfall. He doesn’t have much choice: It’s either cover the expenses or watch his dream project go down in flames, after investing three years and nearly $2 million in the full-service restaurant, which showcases a refined version of the barbecue that has earned Darneille dozens of awards on the competitive circuit.

Darneille had hoped the second round of the Paycheck Protection Program would get him to the other side of the coronavirus pandemic, or at least to spring, when he could reopen his patio. But he learned the Small Business Administration program excludes businesses such as his. He opened Smokecraft on July 31. All PPP applicants had to be operating by Feb. 15, 2020. The cutoff date made sense for the initial draws of PPP loans last spring and summer, Darneille thought. But 10 months and a lot of pandemic-related debt later, he doesn’t understand why the new round continues to honor the same date.

“There is no avenue to appeal. They said I have to write my congressman. I said, ‘Write my congressman? Do you think my congressman will read a letter from me?'” Darneille said. “They’re not going to change the law just for me.”

Other restaurateurs and entrepreneurs who launched businesses after Feb. 15 are scratching their heads over the rule, too. The latest $284 billion round of the PPP was designed, in part, to blunt the criticisms of previous draws: There are new rules to favor community lending institutions and women- and minority-owned businesses, rules to prevent public companies and generally thriving businesses from securing second loans, and rules to give hard-hit restaurants and other food establishments a little extra money.

But in rewriting the guidelines, lawmakers also stuck with the same operating date for eligible businesses, even though countless new restaurants and companies have opened in the interim and have been subjected to the same pandemic-related restrictions and shutdowns that have impacted more-established businesses.

It’s difficult to determine how many small businesses – hundreds of restaurants alone have opened since Feb. 15 in cities around the country – may be impacted by the operating-date rule. Darneille said representatives of his bank told him thousands of new businesses were in a similar situation as Smokecraft. (The Washington Post could not confirm that figure; the SBA said it doesn’t have those statistics.) But Molly Day, vice president of public affairs for the National Small Business Association, says she hasn’t heard widespread complaints from members, but that may be because first-time small business owners don’t typically join an organization focused on federal advocacy.

“We are hearing there’s that frustration,” Day said. But she added that “when crafting the PPP, the whole point of it was to try and keep employees employed at their small businesses. . . . It wasn’t necessarily to start a new business and bring on new employees.”

A representative of the SBA said the agency’s hands are tied. The SBA – and by extension the PPP lenders that act as agents for the government – are just following the rules as established by Congress. “The SBA is working to ensure the economic aid is accessible to all that are eligible, including those hit hardest, while protecting program integrity and ensuring as quick release as possible of the aid,” emailed SBA spokeswoman Shannon Giles.

Patrick Crump, chef-owner of the Renegade in Arlington., Va. MUST CREDIT: photo for The Washington Post by Deb Lindsey.

New businesses may not have access to PPP money like their more-established peers, but they bleed red ink just the same. In some ways, new restaurants such as Amigo by Nai in Manhattan are at a disadvantage as they try to survive the pandemic, said chef and co-owner Ruben Rodriguez.

Amigo by Nai is a partnership between Rodriguez, the chef behind the Spanish fine-dining concept Nai Tapas, and Juan “Billy” Acosta, co-owner of Carnitas El Momo, a beloved Los Angeles taco shop. Amigo debuted on Oct. 1 in the East Village, more than 10 years after Rodriguez opened Nai Tapas just blocks away.

Nai Tapas has been approved for a PPP loan, Rodriguez said, but Amigo by Nai was declined because of its launch date. He’s frustrated by the seemingly arbitrary nature of the cutoff date. As the proprietor of an established restaurant and a new one, Rodriguez knows the former has some advantages over the latter.

Over the years, Nai Tapas has developed a sense of trust and loyalty among employees and suppliers, who will, as a result, stick with the business in tough times. Amigo, by contrast, debuted during a pandemic when everything is uncertain, most notably revenue. As such, suppliers “don’t give you as much leeway for payments,” Rodriguez said, and employees may not stick around if their hours are getting cut.

Not only that, but Amigo has a greater need than Nai Tapas, which has been closed since mid-December, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo shut down indoor dining (though the restaurant will reopen on Feb. 14). Amigo has 14 to 15 employees on the payroll, at a time when sales are only about half of the projected $30,000 to $35,000 a week. “We’re left with a deficit every month,” Rodriguez said. “The PPP was definitely a lifeline I was hoping for.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., former chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, was a principal architect of the PPP. From the beginning, Rubio viewed the program as a way to keep Americans employed during the pandemic as well as a way for small businesses to avoid “the start-up costs and impediments businesses face while hiring and training new employees.” These views were sometimes at odds with those of restaurant owners who saw the PPP as a lifejacket to prevent them from going under.

A congressional aide involved with the PPP said the Feb. 15 operating date was put in the original rules for a number of reasons. Among other things, it was there to prevent scam artists from establishing new companies just to get their hands on PPP money.

The aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak, added that “the program was intended to provide relief to businesses that were hurt by the pandemic, meaning they had to be in operation before the pandemic to be hurt by it. By definition, you can’t be hurt by the pandemic if you opened after the pandemic because there’s nothing to compare to.”

The PPP is “not a revenue replacement program,” the aide said. “You can’t be looking at the PPP as a way to supplement your revenue.” He doesn’t foresee Congress pushing back the operational date to accommodate new businesses.

Despite the tough talk on rules, the SBA and participating banks have shown flexibility in applying them. The official rules state a business had to be “in operation” by Feb. 15, 2020. But SBA spokeswoman Giles says lenders have discretion in how they interpret that language: Some banks use the company’s first day of business, while others use the day the company was incorporated.

This explains why the owners of Petite Peso, a modern Philippine restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, are so bullish about securing a PPP loan even though they opened in April, two months after the cutoff date. The restaurant’s accountant, said president and co-owner Robert Villanueva, has worked with the bank to use Petite Peso’s January incorporation date on the PPP application.

The owners need the cash to help prop up their business, which has struggled to survive through stay-at-home orders and bans on both indoor and outdoor dining in Los Angeles County. Petite Peso is closed but still selling some products online. Without PPP money, “it’s going to be an extremely tough road,” Villanueva said. “Financially we’re getting very very low on our resources.”

On the other hand, Patrick Crump, chef and owner of the Renegade in Arlington, Va., penciled in his first official day of business on the PPP application. The Renegade, a restaurant and live music venue, debuted on Oct. 24, 2019, well ahead of the loan program’s eligibility date. But here’s the thing: For small businesses that are trying to secure a second PPP loan, such as Renegade, they have to prove a 25 percent drop in revenue in one quarter of 2020 compared to the same quarter in 2019.

That calculation would have been almost impossible for the Renegade: Its revenue from the fourth quarter of 2019 covered just over two months, compared to the full quarter in 2020. So of course the revenue was higher in 2020. But because the Renegade used its first day of business, rather than its incorporation date in March 2019, the company was able to compare its only operating quarter in 2019 against any other quarter in 2020, said Yuri Calustro, a partner and business manager with Renegade. They opted to compare it to the second quarter, when Renegade’s revenue plummeted 36 percent compared to 2019 due in part to Virginia’s stay-at-home orders.

The Renegade just had its application approved and is now expecting $156,000 in PPP funds.

“I’m not questioning it,” Calustro said about the flexibility over the revenue-loss rules. “I’m happy that we had the opportunity to do so because otherwise, we would have seriously been looking at closing our doors, and that’s terrible.”

For new restaurants, all this hand-wringing may soon be moot. On Thursday, the Senate passed an amendment during the marathon budget resolution session to provide targeted relief to restaurants and bars. The amendment directs the relevant committees writing the new budget to establish a specific fund to support restaurants. The relief package is expected to top out at $25 billion. There is an air of confidence on Capitol Hill that this will finally be the direct financial relief that restaurants have been lobbying for, though it’s not clear if, like the PPP, it will include new restaurants.

At the same time, lawmakers in both the House and Senate introduced an updated version of the Restaurants Act. The $120 billion program would direct grants, up to $10 million, to independent bars and restaurants, which they could use on a wide range of expenses. Better yet, the revamped act includes new language inserted by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., after he spoke to frustrated restaurateurs in Portland: Restaurants that opened after Jan. 1, 2020, would be eligible for the relief money.

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Trump’s election fraud falsehoods have cost taxpayers $519 million – and counting

InternationalFeb 07. 2021

By The Washington Post · Toluse Olorunnipa, Michelle Ye Hee Lee

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s onslaught of falsehoods about the November election misled millions of Americans, undermined faith in the electoral system, sparked a deadly riot – and has now left taxpayers with a large, and growing, bill.

The total so far: $519 million.

The costs have mounted daily as government agencies at all levels have been forced to devote public funds to respond to actions taken by Trump and his supporters, according to a Washington Post review of local, state and federal spending records, as well as interviews with government officials. The expenditures include legal fees prompted by dozens of fruitless lawsuits, enhanced security in response to death threats against poll workers, and costly repairs needed after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. That attack triggered the expensive massing of thousands of National Guard troops on the streets of Washington amid fears of additional extremist violence.

Although more than $480 million of the total is attributable to the military’s estimated expenses for the troop deployment through mid-March, the financial impact of the president’s refusal to concede the election is probably much higher than what has been documented thus far, and the true costs may never be known.

Many officials contacted by The Post said they were still trying to tally the cost of rapidly scaling up security to deal with the increased threat of violence from Trump supporters. Others have given up on trying to measure their outlays – perplexed over how to calculate the financial impact of a president’s injecting so much instability into the democratic system – opting instead simply to absorb them as the cost of doing business in the Trump era.

Some officials have shifted their attention to planning additional security measures in the volatile environment fostered by Trump’s conspiratorial brand of politics.

“I think anytime you see an event like we saw on January 6, it changes your perspective going forward. You don’t take things for granted like we used to,” said Michael Rapich, superintendent of the Utah Highway Patrol, which spent $227,000 on Jan. 17 to deploy 300 troopers to the State Capitol after threats of an armed siege by Trump supporters ahead of the inauguration of President Biden. “It is an incredible amount of money to spend.”

Other states spent even more, and officials are beginning to draft new security budgets that suggest costs for public safety will grow significantly in the future as a result of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The cost to the federal government continues to grow daily as thousands of National Guard troops patrol Washington and lawmakers consider supplemental spending to bolster their security.

The 25,000 troops that were deployed in Washington traveled on military planes and stayed in local hotels – their presence aimed at restoring order in the nation’s capital after an attempted insurrection that overwhelmed the Capitol Police and led to five deaths.

The Guard deployment’s estimated cost, first reported by Bloomberg News, covers the troop presence at the Capitol through mid-March, according to Defense Department officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal figures. With an unprecedented show of force that included checkpoints and militarized zones in Washington, the troops thwarted any effort to disrupt Biden’s swearing-in, which took place on the same platform stormed by Trump-supporting rioters two weeks earlier.

It is not clear whether the House Democrats managing Trump’s impeachment trial plan to bring up the financial costs borne by taxpayers as a result of what critics have called his “big lie.” The trial begins Tuesday, and Democrats have focused mainly on Trump’s speech to supporters shortly before the Capitol riot.

A spokeswoman for Trump’s presidential office did not respond to a request for comment. Trump’s defense lawyers have argued that he was within his rights to publicly question the election’s integrity and should not be held responsible for the actions of those who attacked the Capitol after his speech.

Several states are working to calculate the taxpayer costs for additional security and related expenses in the aftermath of the November election and the Jan. 6 protests.

In California, state officials estimated that they spent about $19 million, deploying 1,000 National Guard troops and hundreds of state troopers from Jan. 14 to Jan. 21 to protect the State Capitol and other locations.

“That’s a lot of money, even by California standards, for one week’s worth of work,” California Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer said in an interview. “But it was necessary work to make sure that we didn’t see the damage that could have occurred, had we had a crowd that was bent on doing damage to the building.”

In Ohio, taxpayers spent $1.2 million to deploy National Guard troops to the closed Statehouse building in Columbus. The New Mexico legislature increased its appropriation for Capitol security during the 60-day session by almost 40 percent this month, handing taxpayers a bill of $1.5 million for personnel, equipment and other expenses, officials said.

Taxpayers paid to deploy helicopters to monitor potential demonstrations in Texas and North Carolina, temporary fencing around the capitols in Lansing, Mich., and Olympia, Wash., and extra security details for state lawmakers attending legislative sessions.

District of Columbia police dispatched 850 officers to help defend the Capitol, spending more than $8.8 million during the week of Jan. 6, acting police chief Robert Contee III said in his opening statement before a closed session of the House Appropriations Committee on Jan. 26. Contee said the final tab probably will be much higher, and police and prosecutors will be “engaged for years” investigating and trying the rioters.

“The costs for this insurrection – both human and monetary – will be steep,” he said. “The immediate fiscal impact is still being calculated.”

For many states, the post-Jan. 6 costs added to a tab that has been growing since shortly after polls closed on Nov. 3. Trump’s false assertion that night that he had won the election and that it was being stolen in ballot-processing centers led to credible threats against poll workers and facilities where they were working. Between additional legal fees to fend off conspiracy-theory-laced lawsuits from Trump and enhanced security for election officials, states’ costs resulting from the president’s central fabrication about the Nov. 3 vote have escalated rapidly.

States spent untold millions of dollars on election recounts not required by law but demanded by Trump, and on legal and state legislative hearings.

Protesters, some armed, massed at ballot-processing centers in places including Maricopa County, Ariz.; Detroit; and Las Vegas in the days after Nov. 3, echoing Trump’s rhetoric about a rigged election.

The additional costs come as many states are resource-strapped as a result of a pandemic that has racked the economy and decimated state budgets.

Chris Loftis, communications director for the Washington State Patrol, said the new “staggeringly high” costs for security and other expenses constituted “a wasteful distraction of essential and diminishing resources.”

Not included in the more than $4 million estimated security bill that Washington state taxpayers face is the yet-to-be-determined cost of repairing a gate at the governor’s mansion broken by armed demonstrators on Jan. 6.

“Not only have our people, places and processes of democracy been attacked and damaged, but the continuing expense of this new security environment will take away from funds that could have been used for covid vaccines and treatment” and other critical expenses, Loftis said.

In Georgia, the target of a large share of Trump’s post-election fraud allegations, officials conducted two recounts of the presidential vote. One was triggered by Biden’s narrow margin of victory over Trump, leading to a hand recount of all 5 million presidential ballots cast – the largest hand recount in U.S. history. The Trump campaign then requested another recount – this time, a machine rescan of those hand-recounted ballots. Both recounts reaffirmed Biden’s victory. The recounts also generated more costs for staff time and the security of election administrators, who faced growing threats and in some cases required 24-hour police details.

In Fulton County, Georgia’s largest, taxpayers spent an estimated $500,000 on security alone for election officials, who faced harassment and threats fueled by conspiracy theories over the November election.

Other state and local officials spent funds to battle with Trump’s well-funded team of lawyers in court. Trump and his allies devoted more than $11 million to a failed legal effort that included dozens of lawsuits and repeated losses in court because of a lack of evidence to support their allegations. After the Nov. 3 election and through the end of December, Trump and the Republican Party paid at least 65 law firms or lawyers on election-related legal challenges, according to federal campaign finance filings.

The state of Pennsylvania hired several private law firms to deal with the onslaught of election litigation, paying outside lawyers as much as $480 per hour to fight Trump’s claims of rigged voting.

How much taxpayers ultimately had to spend to beat back Trump’s efforts to delay certification or overturn the results remains unknown, because many state officials did not specifically track their legal expenses.

“Although difficult to quantify, many legal hours were invested by the secretary of state’s general counsel and attorneys with the New Mexico attorney general’s office in responding to the baseless lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign,” said Alex Curtas, a spokesman for the New Mexico secretary of state.

Many officials said that although they wished the cost incurred as a result of Trump’s baseless election-fraud allegations could have gone to more productive purposes, they saw the expenses as necessary to defending democracy.

“Safety isn’t cheap. Preparedness isn’t cheap,” Loftis said. “But neither are the lives of the elected leaders and support staff that we have been protecting, the historic and symbolic buildings they work in or the processes of democracy they represent.”

Congress also is grappling with calculating the expected costs of cleaning up and shoring up the U.S. Capitol after rioters, many carrying Trump flags and wearing the signature MAGA hats of the Trump campaign, smashed windows, broke doors, destroyed light fixtures and sprayed graffiti. The hours-long clash between law enforcement and insurrectionists left the building with battle scars that could take months to assess and repair, officials said.

“Statues, murals, historic benches and original shutters all suffered varying degrees of damage – primarily from pepper spray accretions and residue from tear gas and fire extinguishers – that will require cleaning and conservation,” according to an initial assessment of the damage by the office of the architect of the Capitol, which is responsible for preserving and maintaining the Capitol complex.

An official estimate of repair and cleanup costs is still being compiled, said Laura Condeluci, a spokeswoman for the office.

Congressional officials also are trying to determine the cost of securing the Capitol in the future. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., requested a third-party review of security protocols for lawmakers and said she expected Congress to put forward a supplemental spending bill specifically for beefing up security for lawmakers. The $515 million annual budget of the Capitol Police is funded through congressional appropriations.

The Capitol Police, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment about how much the Jan. 6 riot cost, has placed many of its officers on 12-hour shifts and installed magnetometers and other additional security measures in recent weeks to deal with the increased threat of violence against lawmakers.

Acting Capitol Police chief Yogananda Pittman said in a Jan. 28 statement that “vast improvements” were needed for security in the future, including permanent fencing and backup forces in the vicinity of the Capitol complex.

The idea of erecting a fence around the Capitol has received pushback from some congressional leaders and District Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, and it could ultimately be an expensive prospect if approved. The recent project to replace and upgrade the fencing around the White House complex, for example, cost about $64 million.

In the meantime, members of Congress are taking additional security measures on their own, including acquiring bulletproof vests and using private security details and surveillance cameras. Taxpayers are ultimately footing the bill as lawmakers increasingly use their publicly funded Members’ Representational Allowances, known as “MRAs,” to protect themselves.

Pelosi has suggested that she wants the supplemental spending bill to cover much of those costs so that members can use the MRAs for their original purpose of constituent services.

Pelosi also has encouraged lawmakers to attend post-trauma counseling sessions organized in response to the riot. A spokesman for Pelosi did not respond to questions seeking the cost of the third-party security review, the counseling sessions or other ancillary expenses in the aftermath of Jan. 6.

Whatever they cost, those and other measures are expected only to grow over time as lawmakers deal with what the Department of Homeland Security recently described in a bulletin as a “heightened threat environment” in which domestic extremists may act on “perceived grievances fueled by false narratives.”

Robert McCrie, who teaches security management at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, compared the circumstances to the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, which led to a range of permanent security measures and expenses that have continued for almost 20 years.

“There’s no going back,” he said. “Our institutions have to be protected. They’re symbolic, but more than that, they are centers of government, of our sense of having a stable society. So those funds have to be spent.”

Federal investigators also have devoted considerable time and resources to identifying and prosecuting rioters who breached the Capitol and threatened lawmakers; an officer also died after suffering injuries in the attack, and dozens of others also were injured.

U.S. authorities have opened case files on more than 400 potential suspects and obtained more than 500 grand jury subpoenas and search warrants in the sprawling investigation, the acting U.S. attorney in the District, Michael Sherwin, told reporters Jan. 26.

A nationwide manhunt has resulted in 135 arrests and 150 federal criminally charged cases, according to Sherwin, the top prosecutor in the District.

More charges could follow.

Law enforcement officials have estimated that roughly 800 people entered the Capitol without authorization, The Post reported last month.

The FBI and Justice Department declined to comment on the costs of the prosecutions and investigations, but some inside the bureau have described the Capitol riot case as their biggest since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Loftis, the Washington State Patrol spokesman, has said he has the full backing of his agency’s leadership to speak out.

“The selfish madness that caused this national self-inflicted wound must be addressed, as it has heaped tragedy on top of tragedy,” he said. “If those of us in law enforcement don’t speak up in defense of democracy and public safety, then our silence becomes a dreadfully powerful statement in its own right.”

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The $9.2 trillion price tag for failing to vaccinate world

InternationalFeb 07. 2021A healthcare worker receives a dose of the Sinovac Biotech covid-19 vaccine in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Feb. 4, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Dimas Ardian.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Enda Curran, Michelle Jamrisko

The global economy’s recovery risks being dampened or even derailed by the lag in coronavirus vaccinations for poorer nations relative to their wealthier peers.

Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker shows 4.54 million doses were given on average across the world each day over the last week, but it’s far from an even spread. The U.S. and U.K. make up about 40% of the 119.8 million doses administered globally.

Developing and emerging markets are, by and large, doing far less well. In Africa, only Egypt, Morocco, Seychelles and Guinea are recorded as having given any of the vaccines at all. Much of Central Asia and Central America has yet to begin vaccinating, or is moving slowly.

That means emerging economies risk falling further behind economically and limits room for rebound even in fully-inoculated countries by depriving them of demand for their goods and a supply of manufacturing parts. Worse still, not combating covid-19 everywhere may mean harder-to-contain mutations of the virus generate fresh health and economic crises.

“With the virus mutating, no country is safe until the whole world is inoculated and achieves herd immunity,” said Chua Hak Bin, senior economist at Maybank Kim Eng Research in Singapore.

A recent study commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce concluded an unequal allocation of injections could deprive the world economy of as much as $9.2 trillion.

Similar research by Rand Corporation estimated the annual cost could hit $1.2 trillion. Global growth this year could be less than half the World Bank’s 4% estimate if vaccine distribution doesn’t move quickly, said Chief Economist Carmen Reinhart.

Such calculations put rich nations under intensifying pressure to share their vaccine stocks, even though their publics may not support such generosity. Yet the signs point to ongoing hoarding.

European countries are already at odds over access to vaccines, just as they were over personal protective equipment a year ago. A program aimed at enabling access to vaccines is being underfunded by the biggest economies.

In China, which has paced the global economic recovery after getting the virus under control, a lack of urgency means it is now lagging the West in its rollout of vaccines, according to analysis by Gavekal Dragonomics.

Some developing economies worldwide might see some relief soon through the World Health Organization’s Covax initiative, which will send 97.2 million vaccine doses to India in its first tranche of distribution, even as current supply in the country is seen outpacing demand. Pakistan is due to receive 17.2 million shots from the program, with Nigeria getting 16 million.

Rand estimated that so-called vaccine nationalization could end up costing high-income countries $119 billion per year versus a $25 billion price tag for supplying low-income countries with vaccines. The U.S. and Germany would face the biggest hit in absolute terms from the lack of a global inoculation, according to a December report.

Meantime, the study sponsored by the International Chamber of Commerce and written by academics from Koc University and the University of Maryland reckoned 49% of the economic cost of a lingering worldwide pandemic would be borne by advanced economies even if they enjoy total vaccination.

Almost half of respondents in a survey of executives by Oxford Economics see activity in their business remaining below pre-pandemic levels throughout 2021. More than four in five respondents flagged repeated pandemic waves as a significant or very significant risk over the medium term.

Emerging and developing economies are vulnerable to richer countries hoarding their doses because their fragile health systems are straining under the weight of mounting infections, they lack the resources to generate and distribute vaccines as fast as their wealthier peers, and foreign investment is flowing to safer locations.

Take Indonesia. It’s the world’s fourth-largest economy and home to 274 million people, yet covid-19 cases and deaths have accelerated at record paces. Almost half a million people received a first dose of the vaccine by end-January, falling short of a government goal of 598,400 that month. The nation is currently one of the least-vaccinated populations across 66 nations, at 0.30 doses per 100 people as of Feb. 5, according to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics spelled out the dilemma posed by so-called vaccine nationalization bluntly in a report published this week titled: “The pandemic is not under control anywhere unless it is controlled everywhere.”

“If you have public health out of control somewhere, it’s not just a local economic problem, it’s a global economic problem,” said Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at Peterson and one of the report’s authors. “But, unfortunately, I’m not sure anyone is gearing up to actually do anything about it.”

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Air travel recovery likely pushed back to 2022

InternationalFeb 07. 2021Travelers wearing protective masks walk through Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles on Nov. 22, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Bing Guan.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Angus Whitley, Jason Gale, Tara Patel, Christopher Jasper

As coronavirus vaccines started rolling out late last year, there was a palpable sense of excitement. People began browsing travel websites and airlines grew optimistic about flying again. Ryanair Holdings even launched a “Jab & Go” campaign alongside images of 20-somethings on holiday, drinks in hand.

It’s not working out that way.

For a start, it isn’t clear the vaccines actually stop travelers spreading the disease, even if they’re less likely to catch it themselves. Neither are the shots proven against the more-infectious mutant strains that have startled governments from Australia to the U.K. into closing, rather than opening, borders. An ambitious push by carriers for digital health passports to replace the mandatory quarantines killing travel demand is also fraught with challenges and has yet to win over the World Health Organization.

This bleak reality has pushed back expectations of any meaningful recovery in global travel to 2022. That may be too late to save the many airlines with only a few months of cash remaining. And the delay threatens to kill the careers of hundreds of thousands of pilots, flight crew and airport workers who’ve already been out of work for close to a year. Rather than a return to worldwide connectivity — one of the economic miracles of the jet era — prolonged international isolation appears unavoidable.

“It’s very important for people to understand that at the moment, all we know about the vaccines is that they will very effectively reduce your risk of severe disease,” said Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson in Geneva. “We haven’t seen any evidence yet indicating whether or not they stop transmission.”

To be sure, it’s possible a travel rebound will happen on its own — without the need for vaccine passports. Should jabs start to drive down infection and death rates, governments might gain enough confidence to roll back quarantines and other border curbs, and rely more on passengers’ pre-flight Covid-19 tests.

The United Arab Emirates, for example, has largely done away with entry restrictions, other than the need for a negative test. While U.K. regulators banned Ryanair’s “Jab & Go” ad as misleading, the discount airline’s chief Michael O’Leary still expects almost the entire population of Europe to be inoculated by the end of September. “That’s the point where we are released from these restrictions,” he said. “Short-haul travel will recover strongly and quickly.”

For now though, governments broadly remain skittish about welcoming international visitors and rules change at the slightest hint of trouble. Witness Australia, which slammed shut its borders with New Zealand last month after New Zealand reported one Covid-19 case in the community.

New Zealand and Australia, which have pursued a successful approach aimed at eliminating the virus, have both said their borders won’t fully open this year. Travel bubbles, meanwhile, such as one proposed between the Asian financial hubs of Singapore and Hong Kong, have yet to take hold. France on Sunday tightened rules on international travel while Canada is preparing to impose tougher quarantine measures.

“Air traffic and aviation is really way down the priority list for governments,” said Phil Seymour, president and head of advisory at U.K-based aviation services firm IBA Group Ltd. “It’s going to be a long haul out of this.”

The pace of vaccine rollouts is another sticking point.

While the rate of vaccinations has improved in the U.S. — the world’s largest air-travel market before the virus struck — inoculation programs have been far from aviation’s panacea. In some places, they’re just one more thing for people to squabble about. Vaccine nationalism in Europe has dissolved into a rows over supply and who should be protected first. The region is also fractured over whether a jab should be a ticket to unrestricted travel.

It all means a rebound in passenger air traffic “is probably a 2022 thing,” according to Joshua Ng, Singapore-based director at Alton Aviation Consultancy. Long-haul travel may not properly resume until 2023 or 2024, he predicts. The International Air Transport Association said this week that in a worst-case scenario, passenger traffic may only improve by 13% this year. Its official forecast for a 50% rebound was issued in December.

American Airlines on Wednesday warned 13,000 employees they could be laid off, many of them for the second time in six months.

At the end of 2020 “we fully believed that we would be looking at a summer schedule where we’d fly all of our airplanes and need the full strength of our team,” Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker and President Robert Isom told workers. “Regrettably, that is no longer the case.”

The lack of progress is clear in the skies. Commercial flights worldwide as of Feb. 1 wallowed at less than half pre-pandemic levels, according to OAG Aviation Worldwide. Scheduled services in major markets including the U.K., Brazil, Spain are still falling, the data show.

Quarantines that lock up passengers upon arrival for weeks on end remain the great enemy of a real travel rebound. A better alternative, according to IATA, is a digital Travel Pass to store passengers’ vaccine and testing histories, allowing restrictions to be lifted. Many of the world’s largest airlines have rolled out apps from IATA and others, including Singapore Airlines Ltd., Emirates and British Airways.

“We need to be working on as many options as possible,” said Richard Treeves, British Airways’ head of business resilience. “We’re hopeful for integration on those apps and common standards.”

But even IATA recognizes there’s no guarantee every state will adopt its Travel Pass right away, if at all. There’s currently no consensus on vaccine passports within the 27-member European Union, with tourism-dependent countries like Greece and Portugal backing the idea and bigger members including France pushing back.

“We’re going to have a lack of harmony at the beginning,” Nick Careen, IATA’s senior vice president for passenger matters, said at a briefing last month. “None of it is ideal.”

The airline group has called on the WHO to determine that it is safe for inoculated people to fly without quarantining, in a bid to bolster the case for Travel Pass. But the global health body remains unmoved.

“At this point, all we can do is say, yes, you were vaccinated on this date with this vaccine and you had your booster — if it’s a two-course vaccine — on this date,” the WHO’s Harris said. “We’re working very hard to get a secure electronic system so people have that information. But at this point, that’s all it is. It’s a record.”

A vaccine passport wouldn’t be able to demonstrate the quality or durability of any protective immunity gleaned from being inoculated, or from being infected with virus naturally, either, Harris said.

“The idea that your natural immunity should be protective and that you could somehow use this as a way of saying ‘I’m good to travel’ is out completely.”

Doubts around vaccines mean aviation’s top priority should be a standardized testing regime, said IBA’s Seymour. This might involve a coronavirus test 72 hours before departure, 24 hours of isolation on arrival, and then another test before being released.

“If this was the world standard, then I think we would all be prepared to start picking holidays and fly away,” he said.

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Myanmar blocks Internet amid first large street protests since coup

InternationalFeb 07. 2021

By The Washington Post · Shibani Mahtani

HONG KONG – Myanmar authorities on Saturday restricted Internet connectivity and blocked more social media websites, as thousands of people protested in the first street demonstrations since the military took power from the democratically elected government in a coup.

By midmorning, residents in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, were unable to access mobile Internet services, or found their connection spotty. Two foreign telcos, Norway-based Telenor and Qatar-based Ooredoo, operate there.

In a statement, Telenor said that authorities had ordered a “nationwide shutdown” of the network, citing “circulation of fake news, stability of the nation and interest of the public as basis for the order.”

“Telenor Myanmar, as a local company, is bound by local law and needs to handle this irregular and difficult situation,” the operator said, adding that the directive was made to all mobile operators there. “We have employees on the ground and our first priority is to ensure their safety.”

The Internet shutdown followed the first major demonstrations since the Myanmar military seized power in a coup, returning themselves to direct rule and ending a power-sharing agreement with the elected civilian government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party. Dozens of activists and democratically elected ministers were arrested on Monday as the military seized power, and while some were released, Suu Kyi and Myanmar’s president Win Myint continue to be remanded, charged with minor infractions that have allowed authorities to prolong their detention.

Reuters reported that on Saturday, Sean Turnell, an Australian economic adviser to Suu Kyi who has long studied and worked in the country, was also detained. Turnell, in a message to Reuters, said he was “being charged with something, but not sure what.” Messages to Turnell were not returned.

On Saturday morning, protests began in various areas around Yangon, including factories and major intersections close to the city center. Demonstrators held banners denouncing the coup and military rule, and demanding the release of Suu Kyi, who is akin to a deity there. There were no immediate reports of clashes between protesters and police, despite the heavy presence of armed police on standby.

Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest and won a Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent resistance to military rule before her release in 2010, and went on to lead her NLD party to landslide victories in democratic elections in 2015 and again last November.

The military, which allowed for this nominally democratic transition after half a century of rule and paved the way for these elections, allege that there was widespread fraud surrounding the vote, and used that as a pretext to seize power. The union election commission found no such evidence of voter fraud, and analysts have noted that the NLD win was so overwhelming that any minor irregularities would not have changed the result.

Since the coup, a steady drumbeat of resistance has been building, first with a civil disobedience campaign largely organized on social media, Facebook in particular, which is the de facto Internet in Myanmar, widely used and integral to communications there. The military-run government then blocked access to Facebook, prompting a migration to Twitter, which was blocked too along with Instagram.

Telenor expressed deep concern over these actions, which they said contradicted with international human rights law.

Human rights groups were swift to condemn the restrictions, pointing out the essential functions provided by the Internet amid a number of crises in Myanmar: the coup, humanitarian crises and ongoing ethnic fighting and the pandemic.

“Since the 1 February coup, people in Myanmar have been forced into a situation of abject uncertainty,” said Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns. “An expanded Internet shutdown will put them at greater risk of more egregious human rights violations at the hands of the military.”

In a statement, civil society groups in Myanmar added that “the Internet is integral to our survival.”

“These directives were given by an illegitimate authority body,” the statement said, urging the ISPs and mobile operators not to comply. “By engaging in an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power, the military does not have the right to be recognized as the governing body of Myanmar.”

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Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid involved in car accident that reportedly injured two children

InternationalFeb 06. 2021Britt Reid, an assistant coach for the Kansas City Chiefs

By The Washington Post, Mark Maske

Britt Reid, an assistant coach for the Kansas City Chiefs and the son of Coach Andy Reid, was involved in a multiple-vehicle accident that reportedly injured two children Thursday night in the Kansas City, Mo., area.

One of the children suffered life-threatening injuries, Kansas City television station KSHB reported.

The Chiefs said in a written statement Friday that they were aware of the incident.

“The organization has been made aware of a multi-vehicle accident involving Outside Linebackers Coach, Britt Reid,” the team said in its statement. “We are in the process of gathering information, and we will have no further comment at this time. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone involved.”

According to KSHB, authorities were attempting to determine whether driver impairment was a factor in the accident. The station reported that, according to a search warrant, a police officer said that “a moderate odor of alcoholic beverages” was detectable and Britt Reid’s eyes were bloodshot and red. According to the warrant application, Reid told the police officer that he’d had two to three drinks and also took Adderall by prescription.

The officer wrote in the warrant that he observed signs of impairment, and the officer’s request to draw blood from Reid, made after Reid was transported to a hospital due to stomach pain, was approved by a Jackson County Judge, KSHB reported. According to the station, the accident occurred on an interstate near the Chiefs’ practice facility just after 9 p.m. local time Thursday.

The pickup truck reportedly being driven by Reid struck one of two vehicles stopped on an entrance ramp. One vehicle had run out of gas and the other vehicle was driven by a family member who had been summoned to help. According to KSHB, a 5-year-old child in the back seat of one vehicle suffered life-threatening injuries and a 4-year-old child suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

The Chiefs are scheduled to travel to Tampa on Saturday and face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Sunday’s Super Bowl at Raymond James Stadium. The Chiefs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on reports that Britt Reid is not expected to travel with the team. The NFL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Chiefs spent the week in Kansas City, practicing at their own facility, because of changes to the usual Super Bowl procedures brought about by the coronavirus. Teams normally spend the week leading up to the Super Bowl in the city in which the game is to be played.

Britt Reid, 35, was sentenced to eight to 23 months in jail and five years’ probation in 2007 on gun and drug charges after pointing a gun at another driver following a dispute. In 2008, he pleaded guilty after being arrested on a charge of driving under the influence.

He is in his eighth season with the Chiefs and has spent the past two as the team’s outside linebackers coach. He previously had served as a defensive quality control coach, assistant defensive line coach and defensive line coach.

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House approves budget plan as President Biden emphasizes willingness to approve stimulus without GOP votes

InternationalFeb 06. 2021Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., walks to the House floor on Thursday. Washington Post photo by Salwan Georges.

By The Washington Post, Jeff Stein, Erica Werner, and Rachel Siegel

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden on Friday sent his strongest message yet that he intends to move forward on his economic relief plan without Republican support, as the House gave final approval to a budget bill that will allow him to do just that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/1873d1dc-c578-4ba9-a96a-0279dac79223

The House voted 219-209 to approve the budget plan, which the Senate had already passed early Friday morning, beginning the process of turning Biden’s stimulus proposal into legislation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday she aims to pass Biden’s stimulus plan through the House within two weeks.

The rapid movement by congressional Democrats came as Biden gave his sharpest criticism to date of the Republican approach to the stimulus package, suggesting further negotiations with the GOP could cause an unacceptable delay to critical relief.

“Are we going to say to millions of Americans who are out of work – many out of work for six months or longer, who have been scarred by this economic and public health crisis – Don’t worry, hang on, things are going to get better’ ” Biden said in remarks at the White House on Friday. “That’s the Republican answer right now. I can’t in good conscience do that. Too many people in the nation have already suffered for too long.”

Biden’s declaration that he will not wait for Republicans represents a pivotal moment in his presidency, given his pledges restore bipartisanship to Washington. Biden spent 40 years shaping a political identity as a figure who reaches across the aisle – often attracting mockery or derision for it – and he campaigned on pulling the country together after the divisiveness of the Donald Trump era.

Biden invited Republicans to the White House for negotiations over the stimulus, and White House officials said they would still try to incorporate GOP ideas into the final package. But on Friday, Biden sounded ready to push ahead with only the Democrats’ tiny majorities reliably behind him.

“I see enormous pain in this country. A lot of folks out of work. A lot of folks going hungry, staring at the ceiling at night wondering, ‘What am I going to do tomorrow?’ ” Biden said. “So I’m going to act, and I’m going to act fast.”

The budget plan passed by the House will direct committees to start working on the details underlying Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package. The Senate approved that measure in the early-morning hours Friday by a 51-50 vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote in the chamber after more than 15 hours of debate.

The stimulus package would include checks up to $1,400 for low- and moderate-income families, extended jobless benefits, and provide $160 billion to strengthen the public health response to the pandemic, improving the vaccine distribution and increased testing, among other measures.

The Friday votes are the latest sign of a more partisan effort underway in pursuing final passage of Biden’s relief package through a narrow majority.

Top Democrats in both chambers say they are moving with an increased sense of urgency, as the economic recovery from the pandemic continues to show signs of stalling. Meanwhile GOP lawmakers have called for slowing down the relief effort and substantially scaling back the $1.9 trillion effort, which conservatives have derided as unnecessarily increasing the federal deficit.

For his part, Biden, on Friday, accused Republicans of “rediscovering” the danger of the deficit, which rose during the Trump administration with massive tax cuts.

A new jobs report out Friday provided the latest glimpse of the faltering economy, which added just 49,000 jobs in January, an anemic amount of growth, coming a month after the labor market shed jobs. The U.S. has only recovered about half of the 22 million jobs it lost between February and April.

“We now have three disappointing months in a row. We have to admit we’ve stalled out. There’s a danger of double-dip recession,” Austan Goolsbee, who served as a senior economist in the Obama administration, said on CNBC Friday morning while talking about the January jobs report.

Indeed, Democrats have been rushing the stimulus package through, in part, because tens of millions of Americans would begin to lose federal unemployment benefits under existing law in mid-March.

Biden on Friday hosted House Democratic leaders, including Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., at the White House to make the case for swiftly passing the relief effort. He also cited increases in suicides, drug abuse and violence against women during the pandemic.

Pelosi also told House Democrats in a letter Friday that they aim to “finish our work” on the relief package before the end of February. Asked if she could guarantee the legislation would be passed before unemployment aid expires for millions of Americans in mid-March, Pelosi said: “Absolutely. Without any question. Before then.”

“Hopefully in a two-week period of time, we will send something over to the Senate,” Pelosi said, flanked by the Democratic committee chairs. “We hope to be able to put vaccines in people’s arms; money in people’s pockets; children safely in schools; and workers in their jobs.”

Earlier on Friday, the Senate passage of the budget resolution moved the “budget reconciliation” process along, clearing the way for the final stimulus package to pass the Senate with a simple-majority vote, instead of the 60 normally required. That allows Democrats to move forward with no GOP votes if necessary, although Democrats and Biden officials insist that they hope Republicans will join them.

The Senate spent most of Thursday afternoon and Friday morning voting on some 45 amendments on a range of issues, including passing a motion that said stimulus payments should not go to affluent Americans.

“The American people deserve for the conversation about next steps to begin with them and their needs. Not partisan rush jobs. Not talking points,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor on Thursday. “It will not serve Americans to pile another huge mountain of debt on our grandkids for policies that even liberal economists say are poorly targeted to current needs.”

Not all Democrats have been thrilled with Biden’s approach. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., the most conservative Senate Democrat, has said he would strongly prefer a bipartisan bill than one approved only with Democratic votes. On Friday, a bipartisan group of centrist House lawmakers called the Problem Solvers Caucus called for Congress to first approve legislation boosting vaccine distribution — an approach rejected by the White House.

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Biden says Trump should not receive intelligence briefings

InternationalFeb 06. 2021

By The Washington Post, Shane Harris

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden said Friday that former president Donald Trump should not have access to classified information in the form of the briefings usually given to ex-presidents, citing Trump’s “erratic behavior” and the risk that he might recklessly reveal sensitive information.

Biden stopped short of announcing that he had officially decided to prevent his predecessor from receiving the briefings, which are traditionally given before former presidents travel abroad, particularly in an official capacity. But Biden has the unilateral authority to deny intelligence access to anyone he chooses, and his remarks amounted to a statement that Trump – who for four years controlled the entire U.S. security apparatus – was himself a security risk.

Denying the briefings to a former president would be an unprecedented action, and Biden’s remarks, made during an appearance on the “CBS Evening News” with Norah O’Donnell, emphasized the president’s concern, and that of other officials, that Trump poses a risk to national security because of what he might disclose.

Asked by O’Donnell whether Trump should receive the briefings, Biden replied, “I think not.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, during her daily press briefing Monday, when asked whether the Biden administration would provide Trump with intelligence briefings, said that she had raised the question with Biden’s national security team and that the issue was “under review.”

The White House on Friday did not immediately clarify whether Biden’s comments to CBS News represented an official White House policy or was simply an expression of the president’s opinion in response to a question.

A spokesman for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.

Explaining his reason for wanting to withhold sensitive information from Trump, Biden said, “because of his erratic behavior unrelated to the insurrection.”

That was a reference to the events at the heart of the Senate impeachment trial that Trump faces next week. Trump was impeached after encouraging a throng of supporters on Jan. 6 to march to the Capitol in an effort to pressure Congress as it moved to certify Biden’s electoral college victory. A mob broke into the Capitol, forcing Congress to suspend its proceedings and resulting in several deaths.

As president, Trump selectively revealed highly classified information to attack his adversaries, gain political advantage and impress or intimidate foreign governments, in some cases jeopardizing U.S. intelligence capabilities.

The Washington Post reported in May 2017, for example, that Trump had revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador to the United States during a White House meeting, jeopardizing a valuable source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

In Friday’s interview, O’Donnell pressed Biden on his past characterizations of Trump.

“You’ve called him an existential threat. You’ve called him dangerous. You’ve called him reckless,” she said.

Biden replied, “Yeah, I have. And I believe it.”

When asked to describe his “worst fear” were Trump to continue receiving classified information, to which he had unrestricted access as president, Biden said, “I’d rather not speculate out loud. I just think that there is no need for him to have the – the intelligence briefings.”

He added, “What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”

Even before Trump left office, it was clear that his post-presidential life, like his time in office, would deviate starkly from tradition. He declined to attend Biden’s inauguration or welcome him to the White House, as departing presidents have done for their successors for decades. And now he faces an impeachment trial for an alleged offense during his presidency.

Current and former U.S. officials said Friday that they shared Biden’s concern about giving Trump access to national secrets.

“President Biden is certainly correct about the lack of any value in providing Trump intelligence briefings,” said David Priess, who, as a CIA officer, briefed George H.W. Bush for many years after he had left the presidency.

He noted that the briefings are provided because former presidents have a unique role in national life. They are often seen as representing the United States, especially by foreign leaders, for the duration of their lifetime.

“Traditionally, these briefings have kept former presidents informed enough to serve as confidential advisers to the current president if needed, to offer perspective during an international crisis or before high-level negotiations with a foreign leader, for example,” Priess said.

“But there’s no chance of Biden reaching out to Trump for that,” he added. “So why would Biden run the risk of Trump’s disclosure of sensitive information by agreeing to such briefings?”

Last month, before Biden’s inauguration, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee also said Trump should be denied access to official secrets after he left office.

“There is no circumstance in which this president should get another intelligence briefing, not now and not in the future,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Schiff helped lead the first impeachment effort against Trump, starting more than a year ago, after Trump suggested to the president of Ukraine that his country should investigate Biden – at the time a potential rival for the presidency – and his family.

“Indeed, there were, I think, any number of intelligence partners around the world who probably started withholding information from us because they didn’t trust the president would safeguard that information and protect their sources and methods,” Schiff said. “And that makes us less safe.”

While in office, Trump also drew criticism from intelligence officials for his relentless attacks on the intelligence community, which he often portrayed as a den of conspirators fabricating information about his campaign’s contacts with Russia. Trump also ordered the declassification of intelligence that U.S. officials warned could expose sensitive sources of intelligence that could not easily be replaced.

All presidents exit the office with valuable national secrets in their heads, including procedures for launching nuclear weapons, knowledge of the country’s intelligence-gathering capabilities, information about assets inside foreign governments and plans for new and advanced weapon systems.

But until Biden took office, no new president had voiced concern that his predecessor might expose what he knew or act recklessly with information he received after leaving the White House.

Some intelligence experts have previously said that Trump could be seen as a counterintelligence risk: He was in debt and angry at the U.S. government, particularly what he described as a “deep state” conspiracy that he said tried to stop him from winning the White House in 2016 and resisted him while he was in office. Trump also falsely claimed that he was the victim of an illegal effort that robbed him of reelection.

Former presidents generally receive briefings before they travel overseas, especially if they are doing so at the behest of the administration of the day, so that they can be apprised of recent developments and know what subjects they might want to explore, or avoid, with particular foreign leaders. They are often seen as valuable assets by the incumbent White House, given their stature and access to the top levels of foreign governments.

The briefings are usually delivered by current intelligence officers, including those who have experience briefing the sitting president. But former presidents do not receive the same classified daily briefing as a sitting commander in chief.

Biden’s comments about security briefings came just days before the Senate was scheduled to open Trump’s second impeachment trial. House impeachment managers, or prosecutors, are preparing their case that the president, among his alleged offenses, “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government” by inciting the mob that attacked the Capitol.

Trump’s defense team is expected to deny any incitement, saying the president was exercising his right to free speech in questioning the election results, and to argue that the Constitution does not provide for the impeachment trial of a president after he has left office.

Biden, in the interview aired Friday, declined to comment on whether he would vote to convict Trump if he still were a senator.

“Look, I ran like hell to defeat him because I thought he was unfit to be president,” Biden told O’Donnell. “I’ve watched what everybody else watched, what happened when that – that crew invaded the United States Congress. But I’m not in the Senate now. I’ll let the Senate make that decision.”

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Phase III clinical trials show AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine very effective

InternationalFeb 06. 2021

By THE NATION

Primary analysis of Phase III clinical trials of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine conducted in the UK, Brazil and South Africa showed the vaccine is safe. There have been no hospitalisations in more than 22 days after the first shot was administered.

The results were published in The Lancet.

Results demonstrated 76 per cent efficacy of the vaccine after the first dose, and with an inter-dose interval of 12 weeks or more, the vaccine’s efficiency rose to 82 per cent.

The report also showed the vaccine’s potential to reduce asymptomatic transmission of the virus, based on weekly swabs obtained from volunteers in the UK trial.

Data showed that PCR positive readings dropped by 67 per cent after a single dose, and 50 per cent after a two-dose regimen.

The primary analysis was based on 17,177 participants, including 332 symptomatic cases, from the Phase III UK (COV002), Brazil (COV003) and South Africa (COV005) trials led by Oxford University and AstraZeneca. This study included an extra 201 cases.

Sir Mene Pangalos, executive vice president of BioPharmaceuticals R&D, said: “This primary analysis reconfirms that our vaccine prevents severe disease and keeps people out of the hospital. Also, extending the dosing interval not only boosts the vaccine’s efficacy but also enables more people to be vaccinated upfront. Together with the new findings, we believe this vaccine will have a real impact on the pandemic.”

Professor Andrew Pollard, chief investigator of the vaccine trial and co-author of the paper, said: “These new data provide important verification of the interim data that has helped regulators such as the MHRA in the UK and elsewhere around the world to grant the vaccine emergency use authorisation.

“It also helps support the policy recommendation made by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation for a 12-week prime-boost interval, as they look for the optimal approach to roll out and reassures us that people are protected 22 days after a single dose of the vaccine.”

Data will continue to be analysed and shared with regulators around the world to support their ongoing rolling reviews for emergency supply or conditional approval during the health crisis. AstraZeneca is also seeking Emergency Use Listing from the World Health Organisation for an accelerated pathway to vaccine availability in low-income countries.

The vaccine can be stored, transported and handled at normal refrigerated conditions (2 to 8 degrees Celsius) for at least six months and administered within existing healthcare settings.

AstraZeneca continues to engage with governments, international organisations and collaborators around the world to ensure broad and equitable access to the vaccine at no profit for the duration of the pandemic.

In addition to the programme led by Oxford University, AstraZeneca is conducting a large trial in the US and globally. In total, Oxford University and AstraZeneca expect to enrol up to 60,000 participants globally.

The AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine has already been granted a conditional marketing authorisation or emergency use in close to 50 countries, spanning four continents including in the EU, several Latin American countries, India, Morocco and the UK.

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Pots and pans became tools of protests from Chile to Myanmar

InternationalFeb 05. 2021

By The Washington Post · Ruby Mellen

At 8 p.m. Tuesday, the banging of pots filled the air in Myanmar’s largest city. Residents of Yangon, the country’s former capital, unleashed a volley of pan rattling, drum beating and horn honking, a dissonant moment of dissent a day after the military seized power in a coup.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/b301cdad-aad6-46c1-b0b2-210a19b8d5d5?ptvads=block&playthrough=false

The banging of pots and pans is often associated with celebration: Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, people across the globe took to clanging their kitchenware at 7 p.m. to hail essential health workers beginning overnight shifts.

The noisy practice is also associated with a legacy of protest dating back to at least the 19th century, when French women banged pots and pans outside their Paris homes to protest economic conditions and food shortages. Since then, movements around the world have followed each other in using common household items to sound their dissent.

Here are some examples.

– – –

Cacerolazo in Latin America

The banging of pots and pans in Latin America – or cacerolazo – gained prominence in the 1970s because conservative women used the practice to oppose the election of leftist President Salvador Allende in Chile.

“It was an ideal tool for women because the pots symbolized their femininity. But it also was a statement about the lack of food,” Margaret Power, a professor of Latin American history at Illinois Institute of Technology told Vox. “It was accessible. It was a way that somebody could stay within their home or their neighborhood at a time when women’s lives were a bit more controlled.”

The act evolved in the country in 1984, emerging as the sound of protests against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and later spreading across South America in response to the 2001 financial crisis in Argentina, 2013 elections in Venezuela and, in 2020, to protest Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s pandemic response.

– – –

George Floyd protests

In the United States, demonstrators made wide use of pots and pans over the summer, when mass demonstrations against racial injustice sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis prompted some U.S. cities to issue nighttime curfews. Unable to go out and march, people banged kitchen implements instead.

– – –

Iceland’s pots and pans revolution

In Iceland, protesters reeling from the effects of the country’s handling of the 2008 financial crisis took their pots and pans into the streets. Demonstrations calling for the government to resign had broken out across the country since the fall of 2008. On Jan. 20, 2009, as parliament reconvened after a Christmas recess, around 2,000 people gathered outside the building intent on making noise.

The gathering was dubbed by the media the “pots and pans” or “kitchenware” revolution. One Icelandic writer, talking to the New Yorker, called it the “night of the long spoons.” Demonstrators also brought other culinary items, hurling trays of pasta at riot police, who responded with pepper spray.

– – –

Spain

In Spain, the banging of pots and pans most recently emerged as a form of protest against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s strident shutdown measures to combat the coronavirus. Spaniards also banged their kitchenware during a televised speech by King Felipe VI in March amid a financial scandal involving the king’s father.

In the past, the practice was used to protest the Iraq War in 2003 and as part of the 2017 protest movement in Catalonia, where the practice is called cassolada.