Tom Fox, owner of Martini Cleaners in Burien, has doubts about the future of business casual.
Dress shirts, slacks and other office garb made up more than half of Foxs dry cleaning, pressing and tailoring business before the pandemic. Today, he sees only a fraction of that, thanks largely to COVID-related work-from-home regimens that have left office workers everywhere in sweatpants and T-shirts.
Like many businesses, Fox has limped along by cutting staff hours and thinks he can stay open at least through the end of year. But he has no idea whether that will be long enough for business casual to return to business as usual. We could see this cultural experiment going on for the next couple of years, he says.
Anxieties like these are now standard operating procedure for business owners and managers, who know they face months of uncertainty until a vaccine or other treatment is widely available. That leaves them in constant fear of a COVID-19 outbreak among staff or customers, or another statewide lockdown a possibility Gov. Jay Inslee warned on Friday was still a possibility.
Even if COVID-19 is kept at bay, many businesses are bracing for months of lower revenue from health restrictions, consumer uncertainties, and the complicated economic ripple effects of stay-at-home and other social changes during the pandemic. Just last week, Amazon extended its work-from-home policy to early 2021.
Many businesses can expect only between half and three-quarters of their pre-COVID revenue through 2020, warns Thomas Gilbert, associate professor of finance at the University of Washington Foster School of Business. In some sectors, such as restaurants and hotels, expectations are even lower.
That means businesses are going to have to watch their cost line like hawks to ensure survival through the end of the year, but without making the experience unpleasant for customers by cutting too deeply on service, Gilbert says.
Cost-cutting employers also run the risk of losing key staff theyll need when business returns. Fox, for example, worries about retaining his seven employees, some of them quite skilled. Some of them are stretched pretty thin, he says.
Those fears are present in any downturn. But with the pandemic, many businesses must control costs, maintain service and retain staff while also effectively re-engineering much of their operations.
Much of that re-engineering has focused on safety.
When Rhein Haus Seattle, a Capitol Hill beer hall, moved last month into Phase 2 of Inslees four-step reopening strategy, restaurant staff had to master a welter of new safety protocols. Among these: daily temperature checks for staff, switching to compostable utensils and plateware, self-service ordering, and using specific floor routes to minimize close interactions with other staff, says Jeremy Walcott, who manages Rhein Haus Seattle for Seattle-based Weimann Maclise Restaurants.
But safety has also meant some tough choices. Although restaurants were allowed up to 50% capacity in Phase 2, the company took a more cautious approach, in part to assuage staff anxieties over COVID exposure, says Rich Fox, one of the operating owners at Weimann Maclise, which runs nine eateries in Washington state and one in Denver.
As a result, Rhein Haus Seattle, a 12,000-square-foot facility that can seat 439 customers, is currently limited to around 120, Walcott says. Thats left staff at 10, down from 67 before the pandemic, and revenues at around 25% of their pre-COVID levels, he adds.
Like owners and managers at many other public-facing businesses, Walcott has very little ability to plan more than a few weeks out. During a normal July, Walcott would already be scheduling for Oktoberfest, New Years, and other events that account for a large share of revenue.
This July, hes mainly trying to gauge whether the state will actually get to Phase 3, or if surging COVID cases will mean a return to Phase 1, when Walcott ran a takeout-only Rhein Haus with two other employees. So, were in limbo right now, he says.
If safety protocols are among the most visible changes in the way businesses operate, there are also less-obvious costs.
At Ophelias Books, in Seattles Fremont neighborhood, owner Jill Levine and manager Lisa Maslowe reopened the small shop after making fairly modest changes, including removing some bookshelves to allow social distancing, and limiting in-store customers to five at a time.
Harder to address, Maslowe says, is how COVID-19 has restricted the ability to browse for books, or the way it has cut down on tourists who once frequented the shop. Business is down 50% from last year.
Another pandemic casualty: the supply chain for the shops best-sellers used copies of recently published titles. The bookstore used to restock at the annual Seattle Public Library Friends of the Library sale (canceled), as well as at yard sales, which are still infrequent.
When customers do come in, We really dont have as much inventory as we would have liked, Maslowe says, adding that the store is trying to compensate with items like T-shirts, and with more online sales.
More than most downturns, the pandemic has interrupted the intricate, often invisible web that links businesses to the broader economy.
Lois Martin, owner of Community Day Center for Children in Seattles Central District, says she and other child-care operators have suffered both from falling demand, as many parents work from home or have been laid off, and from capacity restrictions around social distancing.
Before the pandemic, Martins facility averaged 37 children a day, she says. Today, the center sees 27 children on its busiest day, so were nowhere near our full capacity, Martin says.
Although she expects some recovery as more parents return to work, she isnt anticipating a quick rebound and may need to cut staff hours.
Martin considers herself lucky. For some local child-care centers, especially smaller ones that were already struggling before the pandemic, the constrained economics of COVID-19 could mean either bumping up fees and losing lower-income customers, or simply closing down altogether.
In King County, total licensed child-care capacity is down 26% since February, and one in three providers say theyre at risk of permanent closure, according to Child Care Aware of Washington.
Thats bad news for hundreds of Seattle child-care owners and employees. But its a huge problem for work-from-home or laid-off parents hoping to return to their own jobs. Theres no way our economy can reopen without us being there, says Martin.
Its yet another illustration of why the COVID-19 recession is so complicated, and how a recovery could take much longer.
Martin says the sector wont be able to maintain sufficient capacity without substantial government assistance. She and other child-care operators are closely watching efforts by state and federal lawmakers, including a proposal by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., to put $50 billion for the child-care sector in the next federal stimulus package.
That highlights yet another COVID-related businesses risk government aid. Although many small businesses have received state and federal assistance, such as Paycheck Protection Program loans, many missed out.
Although policymakers will likely extend some programs, business still wont be able to depend on getting assistance. Even if they start injecting money into the system, you dont know if youre going to be the one to get it, or if its going to be your competitor, warns Jeff Shulman, professor of marketing at the UWs Foster School.
For many businesses, the response to so much uncertainty is extreme caution. Many are putting off all but the most essential expenditures. Others are reopening or ramping up operations as gradually as possible so as not to put too much capital at risk in the event of another shutdown.
One of the biggest fears for Walcott and Fox at Rhein Haus is racing back to normal business hours and persuading lots of former staff to come back only to see a surge in COVID cases force another shutdown.
We really did not want to go too far down the road, Fox says.
Just last week, Inslee warned that the state could reimpose restrictions on bars, restaurants and recreational activities, and declined to rule out the potential of another stay-home order this year.
In the meantime, even hypervigilant businesses must be prepared in case a much smaller outbreak forces them to close down and start over.
At the Sodo factory of Outdoor Research, a Seattle-based maker of outdoor and tactical gear, the company spent weeks re-engineering nearly every work space and process for COVID-19.
Arriving workers go through an elaborate hygiene protocol of temperature checks and sanitizing. Sewing machines and other work stations that were once lined up for assembly-line efficiency are now separated for social distancing. Even hiring happens at a distance: To fill positions for a recent expansion into manufacturing face masks, Outdoor Research held a drive-up job fair in the parking lot in May, says Brent Zwiers, who oversees its production, manufacturing and engineering.
Despite such extensive precautions, a worker at the Seattle operation tested positive several weeks ago. Outdoor Research sent workers home for 14 days to self-isolate and required them to test negative before returning, Zwiers says.
Although the company believes the actual risk of on-site transmission was extremely low due to all the precautions, the potential consequences are extremely high, Zwiers says. So you have to react accordingly.
For many businesses, the many uncertainties of the reopening economy present an agonizing dilemma: They must stay super-cautious without losing the optimism or appetite for risk that is fundamental to success.
To the contrary, even as they wrestle with costs and sanitary protocols, most have no choice but to experiment with ways to replace lost business.
At Ramos Landscape & Gardens in Maple Valley, COVID-19 meant 25% less residential business, in part because office employees now working from home began cutting their own lawns, says co-owner Andres Romero.
But the company compensated by expanding a side business: building patios and other concrete work. Demand has grown so fast during the pandemic that Ramos has added four employees.
Among them were three concrete guys who had been laid off by construction companies, and who otherwise would have been nearly impossible to hire. Before the pandemic, I posted on every [help wanted] page and I couldnt find any, says Romero.
At Martini Cleaners, Tom Fox has also found some sidelines to help tide him over.
If workers arent yet going back to the office, they are using the pandemic to clean out their homes. Fox is seeing lots of comforters and bedspreads and a fair number of older garments that customers want to wear again but need to have altered and cleaned first.
It doesnt replace all Foxs lost business. But it has added a little back to the bottom line and let Fox give a few more hours to staff while also providing some semblance of forward momentum.
So were going to still be a little bit hopeful, he says.
Carmen Garcia waits in line Friday to be tested for the coronavirus at a mobile testing truck in Miami Beach, Fla. The units were brought to the area as coronavirus cases spike in Florida. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption
Carmen Garcia waits in line Friday to be tested for the coronavirus at a mobile testing truck in Miami Beach, Fla. The units were brought to the area as coronavirus cases spike in Florida.
In Florida, hospitals are being stressed by the surge of coronavirus cases. Florida reported 11,466 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday and 128 deaths of residents. It was the fourth day running the state saw more than 100 deaths.
The spike in cases is most acute in the Miami area. Miami-Dade County accounts for nearly a quarter of Florida's 327,241 cases.
On Friday, Miami-Dade County's daily "dashboard" report showed the number of patients admitted with COVID-19 at nearly 120% of intensive care unit capacity.
But Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said ICUs still have beds available. "Hospitals have the ability to add hundreds of ICU beds," he said, by discontinuing elective surgeries and converting recovery rooms into ICU rooms. "We have 450 ICU beds normally, but you have the ability to add another 500. Hospitals are adjusting on a daily basis."
Gimenez said there are no plans, for now, to activate a 450-bed field hospital set up at a convention center in Miami Beach.
Gimenez said hospitals have seen new COVID-19 admissions stay steady in recent days, a sign he hopes that cases may be peaking. In the meantime, the county is working to enforce public health rules, including mandatory face coverings. This week, it adopted an ordinance allowing police and code enforcement officers to issue $100 citations.
"That means you must wear a mask inside public places and outdoors," Gimenez said, "you must social distance or you may get fined."
In the hours after the order was passed, Miami-Dade County officials said they handed out dozens of citations and closed three businesses.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he supports guidelines requiring face masks in Miami-Dade and other counties. But for weeks as cases have surged statewide, DeSantis has resisted calls that he issue a statewide order requiring face coverings.
On Friday, 12 Democratic members of Florida's congressional delegation sent a letter to DeSantis calling again for a statewide mask order and stay-at-home orders in the hardest-hit counties. In their letter, the lawmakers, including Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Shalala, said that "closing part of Florida's economy again would be painful." But "if we continue with the rate of infection we currently have in Florida, our economy will contract and shutter on its own."
In Miami-Dade County, Gimenez said he's waiting to see if stepped-up enforcement and other measures, including a late-night curfew, are effective at stopping large gatherings and other behavior that public health experts said are driving the surge in Florida and elsewhere. Any decisions to order further shutdowns, he said, will be based on data, especially hospitalizations.
"This is a balancing act," Gimenez said. "Starting to shut down again could cause irreparable damage, irreparable harm to people and their livelihoods on a permanent basis."
Yet Germany is not dropping its commitment to balanced budgets. Since much of this spending will be drawn from savings, Germanys public debt is expected to rise, but only to 82 percent of G.D.P. a much lighter debt burden than that of the United States and other highly developed countries, which are spending far less on economic rescue packages.
Doubters say that Germany is now dangerously reliant on industrial exports, particularly to China, in a time of slowing global trade. Well aware of these vulnerabilities, Germany is pushing to modernize its leading exporters, the big car companies. Through regulation and public shaming, it is pressuring the carmakers to turn from the still highly profitable combustion engine to the electric cars of the future. Stuttgart, home to Porsche and Mercedes-Benz, has banned older diesel motors within city limits.
Germany is also making a big if somewhat belated push to become a more competitive tech power. It devotes as much to research and development as the United States does (around 3 percent of G.D.P.) and has a long-term plan to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem akin to Silicon Valley, in which venture capitalists fuel promising start-ups. Germanys technology industry is not without its setbacks, such as the recent and sudden collapse of the financial technology company Wirecard, which has raised questions about the vigilance of Germanys financial regulator. But many of the industrys first successes, copies of American online-shopping and food-delivery companies, are scaling up rapidly.
The German economic rescue plan includes $56 billion for start-ups that can digitize traditional industries, using artificial intelligence and other new technologies. Alongside France, Germany recently announced what its economics minister called a digital moonshot, which aims to create a European internet cloud to rival those of America and China
Germany is an aging, conservative society, but critics who assume it is too slow to change have been proved wrong before. In the early 2000s, when Germany was dismissed as the proverbial sick man of Europe, it adopted labor market reforms that restored its status as the continents most stable economy. As the pandemic accelerates the pace of digitalization and de-globalization and drives up the worlds debts, Germany stands out for its relative lack of weakness to those challenges, and for a government prepared to handle them.
Ruchir Sharma is the chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, the author, most recently, of The Ten Rules of Successful Nations and a contributing Opinion writer. This essay reflects his opinions alone.
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I am pretty sure I have it.
I started saying this to colleagues and students around 9 March 2020. I had a strange, hot pain in my lungs. It was the shape of a horseshoe it ran down the outside and along the bottom of my lungs. I could breathe fine. I was still able to deliver a two-hour lecture, ride my bike, talk to people in meetings, walk to the supermarket; but I was a bit more tired at the end of the day. Then again, I thought to myself, I am always tired at this time of year. Winter was ending in the Netherlands, where I live, and I was almost halfway through what is the busiest time of my working year at the university.
I am a 43-year-old woman with no pre-existing health conditions. I am writing this essay because none of my Australian friends and family know anyone else who has had coronavirus. It took so long for me to get consistent medical attention because I have been regarded as a mild case while frontline medical professionals are busy managing an epidemic.
The last four months have taught me, over and over again, that we should believe the medical professionals when they tell us that they do not know or understand how this virus behaves, what impact it has on our bodies, and what we can do to treat it when we catch it. I want you to know that this virus does not just kill people it can give healthy people a chronic illness that lasts for months.
In March, the Dutch government was advising us to stop shaking hands (the Dutch shake hands with everyone), to wash our hands regularly and to cover our mouths if we coughed. I was not really coughing I would give a pathetic little single cough once or twice a day, and my chest was not feeling congested, there was no phlegm to be cleared. It just felt an electric blanket was running on the highest setting inside my chest. I had never felt anything like it.
My symptoms did not match the list on the National Institute for Public Health and Environment website but just to be on the safe side, I stopped meeting people in person, and went to the supermarket once a week. When I went, I wore latex gloves and kept my distance from other shoppers. I was not coughing or sneezing or sniffing. I could still walk to the shop and carry my shopping home then, a 20-minute walk each way. By 16 March, the Netherlands was in intelligent lockdown.
Once this happened, I was working from home. As the month progressed and the fire kept burning in my lungs, I was getting more tired. I would wake up around 7.30am after nine hours of rest feeling OK, but by 11.30 I needed to sleep.
This thing wants control of my lungs, I said to a friend over the phone in Australia as April drew near. By late March all I could do was lie in bed, nap, read and eat. I drank a lot of fresh ginger tea. The fire in my lungs kept raging, I was only breathing into the very top of my lungs, I could not take a deep breath. I was not sleeping as well I usually do, and when I was very tired (usually in the afternoon) I had developed a spectacular case of tinnitus. I would lie in my bed listening to the phasing of the high pitched frequencies in my ears with curiosity and trepidation. When a friend would call to check how I was while he was on his evening walk, I would sometimes have to ask him to repeat what he was saying three times because I could not hear his deep voice over the screaming high notes in my head. I was worried. I had not occupied physical space with another human being for three weeks. And my body was getting very weak.
I realised I was doing something I came to think of as 'Covid breathing'. Short, shallow gasps
On 28 March, after a particularly stressful night, I called my doctor and he agreed to send me to a respiratory clinic to have my lungs checked. I walked to the clinic very slowly. When the medic came to get me, she wore full PPE. She checked my temperature (normal), the oxygen saturation of my blood (also normal) and listened to my lungs. She could hear the infection there. I think it is coronavirus, she said. But I cannot test you. You can still walk, and talk. Go home and rest and call us if it gets any worse. The Dutch only started widespread testing in June, so to this day I have still not been tested for the virus.
When I spoke to my doctor the next day, he advised that one version of coronavirus seemed to be doing this giving people a long-running lung infection that could last up to six weeks. So you probably have another three weeks or so to go, he suggested.
I took sick leave from work and lay in bed with shortness of breath, burning lungs, ringing ears and total exhaustion for another three weeks. Time was a blur. People would drop off groceries every few days. I could barely stand in my open door and have a conversation with them. I was just too tired. My lungs burned and burned.
Ten days after my visit to the clinic, still with burning lungs and shallow breathing, I called the emergency doctor. I described my symptoms. He looked at the notes from my visit to the respiratory clinic.
They think I have Covid-19, I said. It was 2am. I was awake in the middle of the night. I was scared.
I am sure you do, he responded. Your symptoms are consistent with it. But you can speak in full sentences to me on the phone, so I am not too worried about you. Take some paracetamol and try to rest. Call us if you cannot walk to your toilet, or if your breathing gets worse, or if you have a fever for more than two days.
My doctors prediction was right. I had burning lungs, exhaustion and shallow breathing for a total of six weeks. By the middle of April, the burning started to subside and was replaced by a tightness in my chest and a weight on my lungs. I started coughing; after walking up the stairs in my apartment too fast, or if I talked in an animated way to a friend on WhatsApp for too long. I was so weak I could not walk around the block. Breathing was hard work. On 23 April, I was sent back to the respiratory clinic and checked again. No temperature. Oxygen saturation fine. This time, the medic could not hear evidence of an infection in my lungs when she listened to them.
So why cant I breathe? Why am I coughing? I asked her, crying with frustration.
We dont know. There may be some inflammation there. I will give you a steroid to inhale, that might help.
After the burning pain was replaced by these new symptoms I spent May and the first half of June trying to regain some strength and giving in to my total exhaustion. My lungs would get tired and ache after walking for 10 minutes, or talking for more than 20 minutes. I would fall off a cliff into total exhaustion with seemingly no warning and have to spend a day in bed. But slowly, with two steps forward and one and a half steps backward, I was able to regain enough strength that I could take a walk with a friend (at half my usual pace), and sit with them and talk. This part of my recovery seems consistent with recovery from pneumonia, but I was never diagnosed with pneumonia.
Around this time the media started reporting on long haul cases of the virus. It was reassuring to see that I was not alone. The medical profession started to consider whether people like me were actually patients that needed ongoing care.
As June progressed, my fitness continued to improve but my lungs were still aching, and my chest was still tight. Bone crushing fatigue was replaced by tiredness.
I realised I was doing something I came to think of as Covid breathing. Short, shallow gasps. After six weeks of healing, and 12 weeks since the problems started, there was little real improvement in my lung strength. I talked it over with my doctor, who suggested I see a physiotherapist who specialises in lung rehabilitation.
Two weeks ago, someone showed me how to breathe. It is a strange experience to have to relearn how to do a thing that you never had to learn in the first place. As July begins, I am almost able to breathe normally, but only when I give it my full attention. As I type these words for you I am shallow breathing.
I am writing this because we are four months into the pandemic and we are all tired and some people are wondering, because they lack direct firsthand experience of anyone with the virus, whether there is really anything to worry about. I caught the virus very early, and I cant tell you how long it takes to recover from it, because I have not recovered. I am telling you about my experience with Covid-19 so far to help you keep your strength during this period of uncertainty and restrictions.
I have a long way to go, but after four months I think it might be possible that I will make a full recovery. Medical researchers have a long way to go too. The discipline and patience they are using to understand the virus is not that dissimilar to what I have to draw on now, and what you have to draw on as you continue to face restrictions to your personal freedoms, the worry that you might lose your job, the stress you feel that your postcode might be the next one where an outbreak of the virus occurs. Perhaps it would help us to recognise that we are all long-haul cases.
Anna Poletti is a writer, researcher and teacher based in Utrecht, the Netherlands
The UKs carbon emissions have begun to rebound following the easing of Covid-19 lockdown measures, causing the carbon savings triggered by the coronavirus to halve within weeks.
Greenhouse gas emissions from the energy and transport industries climbed last month as more people returned to work, raising demand for fossil fuels from record lows in April when strict lockdown measures were in place, according to new data.
An analysis by Sia Partners, seen by the Guardian, shows that the UKs carbon emissions fell by 36% in the first four weeks of the lockdown compared to the most recent official carbon emissions data collected in 2018.
But by June Britains total emissions savings had dwindled to a 16% drop as more cars returned to its roads and demand for energy began to rise.
Chlo Depigny, a senior manager at Sia Partners, said the data underlines the fragility of the UKs short-term carbon savings during the coronavirus, and the need for ambitious fundamental changes to the economy if the government hopes to meet its long-term carbon targets.
The data reveals that at the start of the lockdown Britain recorded a 90% collapse in carbon emissions from the aviation sector, a 60% fall in emissions from passenger vehicles and a 30% decline in emissions from Britains energy system.
In the last month the emissions savings from road use shrank from 60% to 30% of typical levels, and the decrease from the energy system contracted from 30% to 15%.
If lockdown measures are removed entirely by early October the total carbon savings from the coronavirus may erode to 10% below normal levels over the year as a whole, down 1 percentage point from the consulting firms previous full-year forecasts earlier this year.
In order to meet the UKs net zero target by 2050 the UK needs to cut 12 megatonnes of CO2 every year this is the equivalent of 3% of the emissions in 2018. So 10% is definitely a significant fall, she said.
However, from a climate point of view if this only occurs in 2020 and normal emissions return in 2021 then these savings will mean only a very small dent to emissions in the end. We saw this in the 2008 financial crisis; emissions very quickly returned to pre-crisis levels, she added.
One of the greatest threats to the UKs carbon savings this year is a surge in demand for road travel as more people opt to use passenger vehicles over public transport to avoid contact with the coronavirus.
This is one of the big uncertainties as we emerge from lockdown, said Depigny. If everyone is concerned about using public transport, and chooses to switch to using cars, then road emissions may well explode over the second half of the year, and could cause even a 10% emissions cut to disappear within a few months.
Another threat to carbon reductions in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak is the number of people who may continue to work from home during the winter months.
The report predicts that the carbon footprint of British homes is expected to be 6% higher than normal in 2020 based on the assumption that many people working from home will make a gradual return to office spaces from October. But a second lockdown during the colder months could mean far higher residential carbon emissions than currently forecast, Depigny said.
We have been lucky that lockdown has happened during warm summer months. If there was a second lockdown during the winter, homes would rely on gas-heating to keep their homes warm all day, which would produce far more emissions than during the summer. It would probably counter most of the savings from less commuting, she said.
Multiple Indian COVID-19 vaccines set to enter trial stages.
While India is set to begin the trials of its indigenous coronavirus vaccine from this week, a top official from the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has claimed that a vaccine cure for the deadly COVID-19 upon its development and marketing would reach usable stage only after 2020.
"A usable vaccine to cure COVID-19 and bringing the same to good use would go beyond 2020. Developing a vaccine for viral infections is a longer process as firstly, these infections have shorter immunity and secondly, viruses mutate faster, so this makes developers clueless as to which mutation is there in which part of the country," said Dr V K Monga, IMA Board of Hospitals Chairman.
Dr Monga further added that for developing a vaccine there are multiple stages and steps. "Developing a vaccine is not a political decision, it involves a lot of steps and procedures," he said. Explaining the process, he said, "First, we isolate the virus then you develop an antidote to that, followed by animal testing and then on human volunteers. Secondly, you see the efficacy, toxicity and then its longevity as to how long it sustains."
"Since the viral infections have shorter immunity, a vaccine with a longer effect is to be seen; secondly, we have to see that it has no side effect and thirdly, viruses mutate faster and hence, it has to be seen that the vaccine is effective on most of the mutants as we don't know which mutated virus is present in which part of the country," he said.
Speaking about the rise in the recovery rate, Dr Monga said that in this particular disease, approximately 80 per cent of the people are recovering on their own. "These patients will automatically recover. Home isolation is a good thing," he said adding that people using masks and adhering to social distancing norms is also increasing recovery. However, he clarified that plasma therapy, which is being seen as the only solution to COVID-19 in place of the absence of the vaccine, can't minimise the need of a vaccine.
"In the case of COVID-19, only vaccine or immunity can defeat the present disease," he said. Regarding community spread of this virus, he added that community spread of COVID-19 has begun in India and the major causes of this are migration of labourers and discontinuing of contact tracing of COVID-19 patients.
"We have indeed moved into community transmission phase. The government may not acknowledge it but look around how the people are getting infected. There are elderly who have not stepped out of home since months yet they have contracted the infection. There are women who have only gone out to buy vegetables in a week and carried home the COVID-19 infection," he said.
"The authorities are unable to track and trace the contacts of each positive case. Also, it is believed that 80 per cent of the population is asymptomatic and have not tested themselves. A few days ago, Kerala government admitted about community transmission in a few districts despite the state having fewer cases in comparison to Delhi and Maharashtra," he added.
With 38,902 new cases reported in the past 24 hours, India's total coronavirus cases on Sunday reached 10,77,618. With 543 new deaths the death toll stood at 26,816, Health Ministry data said. Karnataka is the new hotspot state nearing 60,000 cases, as Maharashtra remained the worst-hit state, with 3,00,937 cases and 11,596 casualties. It crossed the 3-lakh mark on Saturday with Mumbai reporting over 1 lakh coronavirus cases so far.
It is followed by Tamil Nadu with total 1,65,714 cases and 2,403 deaths. The national capital, on the other hand is projecting an uplifting trend. For 17 of the last 20 days, including 11 in a row now, the number of people recovering from COVID-19 in Delhi has remained higher than newly detected infections -- no other state has come close to such a trend.
In 2003, he played a key role in aWorld Health Organizationinvestigation that swiftly identified a coronavirus as the cause of SARS. Stohr alsosounded the alarmon the pandemic potential of avian flu, bringing countries and companies to the table to increase production of vaccines in case it began spreading widely in people.
In Covid-19, which has killed almost 600,000 people, the world faces the crisis that the virologist has long feared. Stohr, who left the WHO to join drugmakerNovartis AGin 2007 and retired a couple of years ago, paints a sobering picture. He spoke with Bloomberg by phone, and his remarks have been edited for clarity and readability:
Bloomberg: How do you see the pandemic advancing before a vaccine potentially is available?
Stohr: The epidemiological behavior of this virus will not be that much different from other respiratory diseases. During winter, they come back.
There will be another wave, and it will be very serious. More than 90% of the population is susceptible. If we do not tighten again to a serious lockdown or similar measures, the virus is going to cause a significant outbreak. Winter is coming before the vaccine. There will be an increase in cases, and there will be problems containing it because people seem not very amenable to more constraints in their movement and freedom.
Bloomberg: When do you predict vaccines may arrive?
Stohr: Countries like Germany may have a significant amount of vaccine by the beginning of next year and a rollout that may take four, five, six months for the elderly. The strategy may be different for a country like Brazil, Argentina or Chile, which may never get a single dose of a vaccine and still has to cope.
The world will be divided into two groups, those with vaccines and those with no vaccines.
Bloomberg: How do you see worldwide immunity ramping up as vaccines are introduced and the disease spreads?
Stohr:I would assume that by the middle of next year a significant portion of the world will have antibodies. That will increase gradually over time. Then there will be a third wave, and when that is over, I would think that 80% of the world may have antibodies if lockdowns are not instituted, which I doubt.
Bloomberg: What does that mean for vaccines under development?
Stohr: Were in a big, big quandary. We have to throw all the resources we can afford toward the development of a vaccine. On the other hand, I believe common sense tells us vaccines will not be available for the majority of the world.
There may be, by the end of this year or beginning of next year, a half a billion doses available. The world population is 7.5 billion. Particularly in those countries which have insufficient infrastructure and struggle with their health-care systems and have huge populations, what vaccine are they going to have?
Bloomberg: A number of groups, including the WHO, are focusing on equitable access. Wont that help tackle those concerns?
Stohr: It would be irresponsible not to do anything. Nevertheless, the majority of the world population will not receive a vaccine. The virus will continue to spread, and it could take two to three years before the virus has affected a large majority of the population.
Its not the vaccine thats going to end the pandemic. The virus will end this pandemic by burning every piece of dry wood it will find. The fire will not go out before the last susceptible person has been affected.
Then the question is what role will any vaccine play afterward.
Bloomberg: You seem optimistic researchers will succeed in coming up with vaccines. How do you assess the prospects and potential risks?
Stohr: The coronavirus is not a particularly difficult virus to handle. Even the conventional vaccines could make a difference, and we have different approaches, vector vaccines, mRNA. That is very promising.
In the past, when a vaccine is introduced, you have a gradual increase in its use, in the number of people immunized, and if anything comes up, even very rare events, they will be noticed pretty early. But here, a vaccine will be used in large amounts, possibly hundreds of millions of doses, in a relatively short period of time, six months to a year. So the question is if there is anything possibly lingering in the vaccine that cannot be detected in the large-scale safety testing during the approval process.
It could hit many, many people. If you immunize 500 million, and its only 1 in a million who is affected, you still have a significant number of people who may have safety problems, so that is something that has to be addressed. But one has to balance the concern about the impact of the disease against the concern of the possible impact of the use of the vaccine.
Bloomberg: Youve said countries need to adjust their strategies. What is the best approach governments can take?
Stohr: We have to find a way to open our community in a way that supports our long-term medical goal, which is the least number of casualties over time, knowing that you cannot avoid the spread of infection. There is no other tool available. If youve got a medical problem, you go skiing, you break your leg, your knee ligament is torn, no problem, go to the doctor and get it fixed. We have no fix here.
We have to live with this virus and we have to find a proper way to ensure that when we are through with this we look back and say we did the best to prevent death and disease. But we cannot do the ostrich policy here andhopethat some miracle will happen and the virus will disappear. The perfect strategy isnt available.
Bloomberg: Youve tackled other viruses from SARS to bird flu, are there any lessons from the past that are relevant today?
Stohr: Since 2003 weve been talking about pandemic planning. Some countries developed these plans and used them. I believe those who had a decent pandemic plan were a couple of steps ahead. But there are still countries with no plans. The learning is get your pandemic plan ready.
It may be clear that only those who will have vaccine production on their soil will have access to vaccines during the pandemic. Ihopeits not going to turn out this way, but I fear it will. That hopefully will result in more investment into pandemic preparedness and vaccine preparedness in the coming years, so that the next pandemic will be addressed better than this one.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.
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Social distancing, mask-wearing, and hand washing are all important steps we should all be taking to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Its clear at this point that the US decided to reopen far too soon, and many states are now seeing record numbers of new cases piling up fast. A vaccine could turn the tide, but as weve known all along, developing such treatment takes time.
David Rach, who was one of the first people to receive a COVID-19 vaccine trial. It was administered by scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and Rachs status has been monitored along the way, with the hopes that the vaccine can bolster his bodys immune system with antibodies that fight off the virus preemptively. Now, Pfizer, which developed the vaccine, says it appears to be working, at least for now.
Rach spoke with WJLA and revealed that, in a recent Pfizer update, the company says the vaccine is producing antibodies in the volunteers bodies in a similar way to those who were actually infected with the coronavirus.
Its exciting from the side of a participant and graduate student studying immunology and also exciting in the promise of a vaccine by next year and life returning to a semblance of normal, Rach said. I found out when Pfizer put out the announcement and my friends started pinging me on Facebook, Oh your picture is in the news again! and Im like wait what happened? There is a component of relief seeing that its actually producing results, that the vaccine is producing antibodies.
Its important to note that while Rach was the first participant, hes not the only one involved in the trial, and since the structure of the trial is double-blind, Rach doesnt know whether or not he was given the vaccine or a placebo. Nevertheless, Pfizer says that the trial itself is showing results, so if Rach received the vaccine he thinks he did, based on a reaction he had to the second shot he may be one of the first people on the planet to have immunity against COVID-19 without first being infected.
At the moment, theres still no reason to believe that a COVID-19 vaccine will be ready for wide distribution prior to early 2021. Trials for vaccines take significant time to complete, even when its being fast-tracked by the FDA, so wear your mask until we can be sure were not all making the pandemic even worse.
Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games for the past decade, covering breaking news and trends in VR, wearables, smartphones, and future tech. Most recently, Mike served as Tech Editor at The Daily Dot, and has been featured in USA Today, Time.com, and countless other web and print outlets. His love ofreporting is second only to his gaming addiction.
In a study published July 14 in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers report on the results of the first COVID-19 vaccine to be tested in people. The trial, which involved 45 healthy volunteers, was designed to test the safety of the vaccine, but results offer early hints of its effectiveness.
Moderna Therapeutics, the Mass.-based biotech firm that developed the vaccine along with researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, first reported the results in a press release on May 18. The NEJM paper formally describes those results.
The 45 participants, aged 18 to 55 years, were enrolled at either the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle or at Emory University in Atlanta; the first volunteer was vaccinated on March 16, just two months after the genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was published. All of the volunteers received one of three levels of doses of the vaccine, which were given in two injections about a month apart.
There were no serious side effects associated with the vaccine at any of the dosing levels, though more than half of the study participants who received the vaccine experienced minor events including fatigue, headache, chills, and pain at the injection site. All of the participants produced antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. And when researchers tested these antibodies against a lab version of SARS-CoV-2, they found these antibodies neutralized the virus as effectively as antibodies taken from people who were naturally infected with SARS-CoV-2 and recovered. They also tested the antibodies taken from a smaller group of study participants against actual samples of SARS-CoV-2 and found their ability to neutralize virus was at least equivalent to that found in people who had recovered from infection.
In both cases, the responses were stronger after the second shot, which experts expected. We saw robust responses after the second vaccination, says Dr. Lisa Jackson, lead author of the NEJM study. It seems that two doses are needed, which is what is expected from this type of vaccine and from a vaccine against an emerging virus that hasnt been present in the population. The immune system needs to be set up by the first dose to then respond more vigorously to the second one.
The preventative treatment relies on a new technology that hasnt yet yielded an approved vaccine for an infectious disease. Using mRNA from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the shot uses the bodys own cells to mimic the process of a natural infection, by producing viral proteins that are recognized by the immune system.
How long the vaccine-induced immune response lasts to protect against COVID-19 isnt clear yet; the 45 participants in this study will be monitored for a year to find out. In the meanwhile, Moderna is already planning for its phase 2 study of the vaccine, which will include 300 peoplehalf placed in a placebo group. The study will continue to evaluate safety and efficacy of the vaccine, as well as narrow down the right dose for the final phase of testing. Given the urgent need for a vaccine, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has also already authorized that phase 3 study involving 30,000 people, which will also compare the efficacy of the actual vaccine against a placebo.
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