Category Archives: Covid-19

Key messages:

The World Health Organization, with the support of the Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-CO-VAC),continues to review and assess the public health implications of emerging SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern (VOC) on the performance of COVID-19 vaccines. Since the publication of the interim statement on COVID-19 vaccines on 11 January 2022, Omicron has become the dominant VOC globally,rapidly replacing other circulating variants. This statement highlights the global epidemiological situation, challenges of updating vaccine composition and provides the current position of the TAG-CO-VAC.

The current global epidemiological situation is characterized by rapid and relatively synchronous dominance of Omicron variant in all six WHO regions. While global cases are declining, there are reduced testing resources and capacities in some areas andthe epidemiological situation remains heterogeneous, with a number of regions and countries reporting increases in new weekly cases, while others are now reporting declines.

Omicron is comprised of several genetically related sublineages, including BA.1, BA.2 and BA.3, each of which is being monitored by WHO and partners. At a global level, BA.1 has been the predominant Omicron lineage, however, the proportion of reportedsequences designated as BA.2 has been increasing relative to BA.1 in recent weeks, and is the predominant Omicron lineage in several countries. BA.1 and BA.2 have some genetic differences, which may make them antigenically distinct. Reinfection withBA.2 following infection with BA.1 has been documented, however, initial data from population-level studies suggest that infection with BA.1 provides substantial protection against reinfection with BA.2, at least for the limited period for which dataare available. For more details on the Omicron sublineages, please refer to the statement by WHO on the Omicron sublineage BA.2 , published on 22 February 2022.

The public health goal of COVID-19 vaccination prioritizes protection against severe disease and death. Current vaccines appear to confer high levels of protection against severe disease outcomes associated with Omicron infection. The TAG-CO-VAC thereforestrongly supports urgent and broad access to current COVID-19 vaccines for primary series and booster doses, particularly for groups at risk of developing severe disease. The near- and medium-term supply of the available vaccines has increased substantially,however, vaccine equity remains an important challenge and all efforts to address such inequities are strongly encouraged.

The first interim statement from the TAG-CO-VAC highlighted the need for the development of vaccines that provide protection against infection and prevent transmission, in addition to the protection from severe disease and death, as a means to achievea greater public health impact from COVID-19 vaccination. In this context, vaccines that are able to elicit mucosal immunity, in addition to systemic immunity, are an important goal. One of the options proposed in the first statement was the developmentof pan SARS-CoV-2 or pansarbecovirus vaccines. Such vaccines would provide protection that would effectively be variant-proof, and work in this area should be accelerated.

Current vaccines are based on the virus that circulated early in the pandemic (ancestral virus e.g. GISAID: hCoV-19/Wuhan/WIV04/2019). Since then, there has been continuous and substantial virus evolution and it is likely that this evolution will continue,resulting in the emergence of new variants. The composition of current COVID-19 vaccines may therefore need to be updated. Any update to current COVID-19 vaccine composition would aim to, at a minimum, retain protection against severe disease anddeath, while ensuring the breadth of the immune response against circulating and emerging variants, which may be antigenically distinct.

The TAG-CO-VAC considered a number of issues, all of which are important in any decision on COVID-19 vaccine composition:

The TAG-CO-VAC welcomes, where feasible, the development and initiation of clinical trials on variant-specific candidate vaccines against WHO-designated VOCs, including Omicron. In this context, the TAG-CO-VAC is seeking evidence of robust homologousimmune responses in primed and unprimed individuals and cross-reactivity data in primed individuals. The TAG-CO-VAC encourages collection of data following one and two doses of any modified vaccine across a variety of relevant vaccine platforms.

The TAG-CO-VAC continues to encourage COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers to generate and provide data to WHO on the performance of current and variant-specific candidate COVID-19 vaccines, including the breadth, magnitude, and durability of humoral and cell-mediatedimmune responses to variants through monovalent and/or multivalent vaccines. The TAG-CO-VAC will carefully consider these data as part of a broader decision-making framework on COVID-19 vaccine composition, allowing the TAG-CO-VAC to issue more specificadvice on any adjustments that may be needed to COVID-19 vaccine strain composition, developed either as a monovalent vaccine targeting the predominant circulating variant(s) or a multivalent vaccine derived from different variants.

The TAG-CO-VAC recognizes the independent role and procedures of relevant regulatory authorities in establishing the necessary requirements for evaluation under the currently established regulatory pathways, and the role of WHO in ensuring alignment,collaboration and a continuous exchange of information between WHO and its expert groups, the TAG-CO-VAC, regulatory authorities, and COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers.

The statement reflects the current vaccine performance and landscape of vaccine development. The statement will therefore be updated as data become available.

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Interim Statement on COVID-19 vaccines in the context of the circulation of the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 Variant from the WHO Technical Advisory Group on...

Pandemic divergence: A short note on COVID-19 and global income inequality Skip to main content Abstract

In this paper we provide an initial assessment of the economic losses related to the COVID-19 pandemic in two ways: as output contractions in 2020-2021 and as growth revisions (the estimated cumulative output loss in 2020-2030 based on growth forecasts before and after COVID-19). We find that, whereas the immediate GDP impact seems to favor poorer countries that were less intensely hit by the virus, the long-term economic cost correlates negatively with the countrys initial per capita GDP, worsening global income inequality. The note identifies empirically some of the key drivers of these country differences (e.g., informality, tourism dependence, fiscal space) and provides broader estimates of COVID-related economic loss that incorporate the costs associated with fiscal stimuli, excess deaths, and education lockdowns.

Download the full working paper

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Pandemic divergence: A short note on COVID-19 and global income inequality - Brookings Institution

KINGSTON, N.Y. Ulster Countys active COVID-19 cases have dropped to double digits, according to the governments online coronavirus dashboard.

The county reported Tuesday that on Monday, March 7, there were just 77 active cases, 55 fewer than the 132 reported a day earlier. The last time the active case number was in the double digits was in July of 2021.

But Ulster County reported one new death on Tuesday, bringing the total to 372 since the pandemic began in March 2020.

The county said that it has had 37,052 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 36,603 recoveries.

Tuesday, March 8, marked the two-year anniversary of the first COVID-10 case reported in Ulster County.

Dutchess County on Tuesday reported no additional COVID-19 deaths as of Sunday, March 6, leaving the countys pandemic-related death toll to 650, according to the governments COVID-19 dashboard.

The county reported that active cases shrank slightly, to 131 as of Sunday. Thats down 10 cases from the 141 reported Saturday.

Dutchess County has recorded a pandemic total of 63,329 cases of COVID-19 since March 2020.

The dashboard numbers do not include home test results not reported to health departments.

Data as of Monday, March 7, from thestate Department of Health..

Ellenville Regional Hospital, 0.

HealthAlliance Hospitals in Kingston, 7.

Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck, 1.

Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie, 5.

Mid-Hudson Regional Hospital in Poughkeepsie, 3.

Data as of Monday, March 7, from New Yorkstates online vaccine tracker.

Ulster County: 74% fully vaccinated, 81% with at least one dose of a two-dose regimen, 89.1% of 18+ population with at least one dose.

Dutchess County: 68.8% fully vaccinated, 76.6% with at least one dose of a two-dose regimen, 85.1% of 18+ population with at least one dose.

Appointments:vaccinateulster.com,bit.ly/dut-vax,bit.ly/ny-vaxme

Here are the latest reports ofCOVID cases in area school districts.

Kingston: One student at the high school.

Highland: One student at the elementary school and one student, one teacher at the middle school.

Onteora: One student at Phoenicia Elementary School.

Rondout Valley: One staff at Kerhonkson Elementary School and one student at Rondout Valley Intermediate School.

Saugerties: One student each at Cahill Elementary School, the junior high school and the high school.

Marlboro: One staff at the elementary school.

Red Hook: One student each at the Mill Road Intermediate School and the Mill Road Primary School.

BOCES: One teacher at the Career and Technical Education Center and one student, one teacher, one staff at the Center for Innovative Teaching and learning.

For online local coverage related to the coronavirus, go todailyfreeman.com/tag/coronavirus.

The rest is here:

Active COVID-19 cases dive to double digits in Ulster County - The Daily Freeman

Dear Students, Faculty, Staff and Families:

In recent weeks, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, the Onondaga County executive, and many of our national and New York state peer institutions have announced significant changes to public health guidelines. Primarily, these changes relate to reduced indoor masking requirements, including the elimination of mask mandates for children attending K-12 public schools across New York state.

Here on the Syracuse University campus, we continue to pursue a public health policy that is aligned with local conditions and local data. Accordingly, Im writing today to announce that, conditions permitting, the University will transition on Monday, March 14, to the Yellow level on the COVID masking framework. This action would align our masking practices on campus with the most recent guidance from the CDC, and those in place in the local community and around the country.

Under the Yellow masking level:

In addition to the recent changes on masking announced by the CDC and New York State, there are several other indicators and metrics informing this action, including:

Please note that Syracuse University will continue to offer free and on-demand COVID testing to students, faculty, staff and families. Further, we will also continue our random surveillance testing program and wastewater testing of our residence halls. However, to further ease the COVID-related requirements for fully vaccinated individuals, we will begin to reduce the number of vaccinated individuals required to test each week, while prioritizing ongoing testing for vaccine-exempt individuals. Please visit the Stay Safe website for the most up-to-date testing hours.

The action were announcing today is possible because of our communitys commitment to good public health practicesparticularly the overwhelming campus community compliance with the Universitys COVID vaccination and booster requirement.

Thank you for your continued commitment to the health and wellness of our community.

Sincerely,

J. Michael HaynieVice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives and Innovation

Read the original post:

COVID-19 Update: Continued Assessment of Masking Guidance - Syracuse University News

The studies in this group used the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, which looked at government responses worldwide to the pandemic and created a stringency index, measuring how strict the measures were over time. The index is from 0 to 100, with 100 being the most stringent restrictions. For instance, the OxCGRT heat map shows that many countries around the world had stringency levels above 70 in April 2020.

The working paper calculates mortality impact estimates for each of the seven studies aiming to show the effect of the average mandated restrictions in Europe and the United States early in the pandemic compared with a policy of only recommendations. The paper then calculates a weighted average, giving more weight to studies that said their findings were more precise. Nearly all of the weight 91.8% goes to one study, even though the working paper rejects the conclusions of that study.

That study coauthored by Carolyn Chisadza, a senior lecturer in economics at the University of Pretoria, and published on March 10, 2021, in the journal Sustainability looked at a sample of countries between March and September 2020 and concluded: Less stringent interventions increase the number of deaths, whereas more severe responses to the pandemic can lower fatalities.

The working paper claims the researchers conclusion is incorrect but it uses the studys estimates, saying the figures show an increase in mortality due to lockdowns.

Chisadza told us in an email that the study showed: Stricter lockdowns will reduce the rate of deaths than would have occurred without lockdown or too lenient of restrictions. But Hanke said the data from Chisadza and her colleagues only show that stricter lockdowns will reduce mortality relative to the worst possible lockdown, meaning a more lenient lockdown that, under the study, was associated with the highest rate of deaths.

We reached out to a third party about this disagreement. Victor Chernozhukov, a professor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Department of Economics and the Statistics and Data Science Center, along with Professor Hiroyuki Kasahara and Associate Professor Paul Schrimpf, both with the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia the authors of another study that was included in the working paper looked at the Chisadza study and provided FactCheck.org with a peer review of it. They found the Chisadza study only measured the correlation between current death growth rates and current policies. It did not show the lagged effect of more stringent policies, implemented three weeks prior, on current death growth rates, which is what one would want to look at to evaluate the effectiveness of lockdowns.

In an email and in a phone interview, Chernozhukov told us the Chisadza study made an honest mistake. He said the working paper is deeply flawed partly because it relies heavily on a study that estimates the wrong effect very precisely.

In their review, Chernozhukov, Kasahara and Schrimpf write that the Chisadza et al. study should be interpreted as saying that the countries currently experiencing high death rates (or death growth rates) are more likely to implement more stringent current policy. That is the only conclusion we can draw from [the study], because the current policy can not possibly influence the current deaths, given the several weeks of delay between new infections and deaths.

The effect that should be examined for the meta-analysis is the effect of the previous (e.g., 3 week lagged) policy stringency index on the current death growth rates.

Chernozhukov, Kasahara and Schrimpf conducted a quick reanalysis of similar data to the Chisadza study, finding results that suggest that more stringent policies in the past predict lower death growth rates. Chernozhukov said much more analysis would be needed to further characterize this effect, but that it is actually quite substantial.

If the Chisadza study were removed from the working paper, according to one of the papers footnotes, the result would be a weighted average reduction in mortality of 3.5%, which Hanke said doesnt change the overall conclusions. He said it simply demonstrates the obvious fact that the conclusions contained in our meta-analysis are robust.

But experts have pointed out other issues with the meta-analysis. Chernozhukov also said the paper excluded a whole bunch of studies, including synthetic control method studies, which evaluate treatment effects. He also questioned the utility of looking at a policy index that considers the U.S. as a whole, lumping all the states together. He said the meta-analysis is not credible at all.

Among the other six stringency index studies included in the meta-analysis, only one concluded that its findings suggested lockdowns had zero effect on mortality. In a review of 24 European countries weekly mortality rates for the first six months of 2017-2020, the study, published in CESifo Economic Studies, found no clear association between lockdown policies and mortality development. The author and Herby, one of the authors of the working paper, have written for the American Institute for Economic Research, which facilitated the controversial Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 statement advocating those at low risk of dying from COVID-19 live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while those at highest risk are protected.

The other studies found lockdown policies helped COVID-19 health outcomes. For instance, a CDC study published in the agencys Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report in January 2021, on the experience of 37 European countries from Jan. 23 to June 30, 2020, concluded that countries that implemented more stringent mitigation policies earlier in their outbreak response tended to report fewer COVID-19 deaths through the end of June 2020. These countries might have saved several thousand lives relative to countries that implemented similar policies, but later.

A working paper from Harvard Universitys Center for International Development, which looked at 152 countries from the beginning of the pandemic until Dec. 31, 2020, found that lockdowns tend to significantly reduce the spread of the virus and the number of related deaths. But the effect fades over time, so lengthy (after four months) or second-phase lockdowns dont have the same impact.

A study published in World Medical & Health Policy in November 2020 that looked at whether 24 European countries responded quickly enough found that the fluctuating containment measures, from country to country and over time, prohibited a clear association with the mortality rate. But it said the implementation speed of these containment measures in response to the coronavirus had a strong effect on the successful mitigation of fatalities.

Many studies found restrictions worked. Meyerowitz-Katz noted that the working paper authors disagreed with the conclusions of other studies included in the review, pointing to one included in the group of shelter-in-place orders. Meyerowitz-Katz said that study found that significant restrictions were effective, but is included in this review as estimating a 13.1% INCREASE in fatalities.

That study, by Yale School of Management researchers, published by The Review of Financial Studies in June 2021, developed a time-series database on several types of restrictions for every U.S. county from March to December 2020. The authors concluded: We find strong evidence consistent with the idea that employee mask policies, mask mandates for the general population, restaurant and bar closures, gym closures, and high-risk business closures reduce future fatality growth. Other business restrictions, such as second-round closures of low- to medium-risk businesses and personal care/spa services, did not generate consistent evidence of lowered fatality growth and may have been counterproductive. The authors said the studys findings lie somewhere in the middle of the existing results on how NPIs influenced the spread of COVID-19.

In terms of hard figures on fatality reductions, the study said the estimates suggest a county with a mandatory mask policy would see 15.3% fewer new deaths per 10,000 residents on average six weeks later, compared with a county without a mandatory mask policy. The impact for restaurant closures would be a decrease of 36.4%. But the estimates suggest other measures, including limits on gatherings of 100 people or more, appeared to increase deaths. The authors said one possible explanation of such effects could be that the public is substituting other activities that actually increase transmission of the virus such as hosting weddings with 99 people in attendance, just under the 100-person limitation.

Another study in the shelter-in-place group is the study by Chernozhukov, Kasahara and Schrimpf, published in theJournal of Econometrics in January 2021. It looked at the policies in U.S. states and found that nationally mandating face masks for employees early in the pandemic could have led to as much as 19 to 47 percent less deaths nationally by the end of May, which roughly translates into 19 to 47 thousand saved lives. It found cases would have been 6% to 63% higher without stay-at-home orders and found considerable uncertainty over the impact of closing schools. It also found substantial declines in growth rates are attributable to private behavioral response, but policies played an important role as well.

The working paper considered 13 studies that evaluated stay-in-place orders, either alone or in combination with other NPIs. The estimated effect on total fatalities for each study calculated by the authors varied quite widely, from a decrease of 40.8% to an increase of 13.1% (the study above mentioned by Meyerowitz-Katz). The authors then combined the studies into a weighted average showing a 2.9% decrease in mortality from these studies on shelter-in-place orders.

Sizable impact from some NPIs. The working paper actually found a sizable decrease in deaths related to closing nonessential businesses: a 10.6% weighted average reduction in mortality. The authors said this is likely to be related to the closure of bars. It also calculated a 21.2% weighted average reduction in deaths due to mask requirements, but notes this conclusion is based on only two studies.

As with the shelter-in-place group, the calculated effects in the specific NPIs group varied widely from a 50% reduction in mortality due to business closures to a 36% increase due to border closures. The paper said differences in the choice of NPIs and in the number of NPIs make it challenging to create an overview of the results.

The review itself does refer to other papers that reported that the lockdowns had a significant impact in preventing deaths, Dr. Lee Riley, chair of the Division of Infectious Disease and Vaccinology at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, told us when we asked for his thoughts on the working paper. The pandemic has now been occurring long enough that its not surprising to begin to see many more reports that now contradict each other. As we all know, the US and Europe went through several periods when they relaxed their lockdowns, which was followed by a resurgence of the cases.

Riley said that many of the studies that this review included may suffer from the classic chicken-or-egg bias. Whenever there was an increase in cases of deaths, lockdowns got instituted so its not surprising that some of the studies showed no impact of the lockdowns. If there was no surge of cases or deaths, most places in the US did not impose restrictions.

Meyerowitz-Katz noted on Twitter that the impact of lockdowns is very hard to assess, if for no other reason than we have no good definition of lockdown in the first place. In most cases, it seems the authors have taken estimates for stay-at-home orders as their practical definition of lockdown (this is pretty common) And honestly, Id agree that the evidence for marginal benefit from stay-at-home orders once youve already implemented dozens of restrictions is probably quite weak.

But, if we consider lockdown to be any compulsory restriction at all, the reality is that virtually all research shows a (short-term) mortality benefit from at least some restrictions.

Weve already mentioned two studies beyond those in the working paper: the Nature June 2020 study by Imperial College London researchers that estimated interventions in 11 countries in Europe in the first few months of the pandemic reduced transmission and averted 3.1 million deaths; and the Nature May 2020 study that estimated cases in mainland China would have been 67-fold greater without several NPIs by the end of February.

There are many more that aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of various mitigation strategies, not included in the working papers analysis.

Near the end of his lengthy Twitter thread on the working paper, Meyerowitz-Katz said he agrees that a lot of people originally underestimated the impact of voluntary behaviour change on COVID-19 death rates its probably not wrong to argue that lockdowns werent as effective as we initially thought. He pointed to the Nature Communications study mentioned above, showing less of an impact from NPIs in a second wave of COVID-19 and positing individual safety behaviors were playing more of a role in that second wave.

HOWEVER, this runs both ways, Meyerowitz-Katz said. [I]t is also quite likely that lockdowns did not have the NEGATIVE impact most people propose, because some behaviour changes were voluntary!

He and others examined whether lockdowns were more harmful than the pandemic itself in a 2021 commentary piece in BMJ Global Health. They concluded that government interventions, even more restrictive ones such as stay-at-home orders, are beneficial in some circumstances and unlikely to be causing harms more extreme than the pandemic itself. Analyzing excess mortality suggested that lockdowns are not associated with large numbers of deaths in places that avoided large COVID-19 epidemics, such as Australia and New Zealand, they wrote.

Editors note:SciChecks COVID-19/Vaccination Projectis made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation hasno controlover FactCheck.orgs editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation. The goal of the project is to increase exposure to accurate information about COVID-19 and vaccines, while decreasing the impact of misinformation.

Herby, Jonas et al. A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COVID-19 Mortality. Studies in Applied Economics, Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, Johns Hopkins University. posted Jan 2022.

World Health Organization. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Herd immunity, lockdowns and COVID-19. 31 Dec 2020.

Flaxman, Seth et al. Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe. Nature. 584 (2020).

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Sharfstein, Joshua, vice dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Statement emailed to FactCheck.org. 8 Feb 2022.

Best, Paul. Lockdowns only reduced COVID-19 death rate by .2%, study finds: Lockdowns should be rejected out of hand.' Fox News. 1 Feb 2022.

Meyerowitz-Katz, Gideon. @GidMK. This paper has been doing the rounds, claiming that lockdown was useless (the source of the 0.2% effect of lockdown claim). Dozens of people have asked my opinion of it, so here we go: In my opinion, it is a very weak review that doesnt really show much, if anything 1/n. Twitter.com. 4 Feb 2022.

Hanke, Steve H., founder and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. Email interview with FactCheck.org. 18 Feb 2022.

Ferguson, Neil, director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Jameel Institute, Imperial College London. Statement posted by Science Media Centre. 3 Feb 2022.

Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. https://covidtracker.bsg.ox.ac.uk/. website accessed 20 Feb 2022.

Chisadza, Carolyn, senior lecturer in economics at the University of Pretoria. Email interview with FactCheck.org. 15 Feb 2022.

Clance, Matthew, associate professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Pretoria. Email interview with FactCheck.org. 16 Feb 2022.

Our World in Data. Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths. website accessed 22 Feb 2022.

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What We've Learned About So-Called 'Lockdowns' and the COVID-19 Pandemic - FactCheck.org

DENVER (KDVR) COVID-19 rates continue to decline in Colorado as the state moves into theendemic phase.

The state continues to see a decline in COVID-19rates. This week, 21 counties saw an increase in positivity.

As of Monday, the states seven-day positivity rate was 3.11%, which is down from4.01% seven days ago. Positivity rate measures the amount of COVID positive tests to the total amount of tests taken.

Over the last week, 38 counties saw a decrease in COVID-19 positivity, 21 counties saw a rise, two counties stayed the same, and three counties administered fewer than 10 tests.

According to theColorado Department of Public Health and Environment, incidence rates also dropped over the last week.

Heres a look atpositivity rates for every county over the last seven days:

According toJohns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the percent positive is exactly what it sounds like: the percentage of all coronavirus tests performed that are actually positive, or: (positive tests)/(total tests) x 100%. The percent positive (sometimes called the percent positive rate or positivity rate) helps public health officials answer questions suchas:

The percent positive will be high if the number ofpositive testsis too high, or if the number oftotal testsis too low. A higher percent positive suggests higher transmission and that there are likely more people with coronavirus in the community who havent been tested yet, Johns Hopkins shared.

Continued here:

These 21 counties saw a rise in COVID-19 this week - FOX 31 Denver

Dollar moving up. Money finance growth chart graph stock market

Martin A. Sullivan, Tax Analysts chief economist, provides an overview of the U.S. economy before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, explaining the drastic increase in inflation and what is needed to curb it.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

David D. Stewart: Welcome to the podcast. I'm David Stewart, editor in chief of Tax Notes Today International. This week: the road to inflation.

Over the last two years, as the United States has weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy has seen its share of lows and highs. At the beginning, when everything was shut down, experts were predicting a coming recession. But, as things opened up again and relief was passed, the economy seemed to bounce back rather quickly.

So much so, that now the U.S. is facing a different problem: inflation. In fact, the U.S. just posted the highest inflation number in four decades. As the country looks to emerge on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic, one question keeps popping up: What, if anything, needs to be done to keep inflation in check?

Here to talk more about this is Tax Analysts' chief economist and contributing editor Martin Sullivan. Marty, welcome back to the podcast.

Martin A. Sullivan: Thanks for having me, David.

David D. Stewart: Before we delve into the economy since the COVID-19 pandemic, let's take a step back. Could you tell us what the economy looked like before COVID-19?

Martin A. Sullivan: It's really important to do that because you really can't understand what's going on with COVID-19 until you understand what was going on before COVID-19.

Let's review some amazing facts about the economy before COVID-19. Before COVID-19, interest rates were incredibly low. They dropped from 12 percent to 14 percent in the mid 1980s to about 2 percent in the current environment. The economy was growing at a much slower rate than over the historical post-war period.

Instead of growing at 3.3 percent and 1.5 percent, as it did from 1945 to 2010, it was growing at 2 percent. That was very strange because we had very expansionary fiscal policy. We were running huge deficits, and also we had very expansionary monetary policy. The Fed was buying bonds all over the place.

What was going on, and what was very hard to understand, was that we were stepping on the gas with fiscal policy and monetary policy, but we were still going only 15 miles an hour. This caused a lot of top economists to start thinking, "Maybe we're entering an era of long term stagnation like Japan had."

If you recall, Japan had two decades of zero growth. The low interest rates are an indication of that. A very important factor that people forget about are low birth rates equals low population growth. Economic growth depends on capital, it depends on productivity, but also depends on people, and when there are less people in the workforce, economic growth slows down.

Where did that leave us before COVID-19? Well, we were looking at a high debt-to-GDP ratio. The federal debt was very high, but interest rates were very low. The net cost of supporting our debt actually went down. What economists were talking about was the need to greatly expand fiscal policy. To increase deficits contrary to what you always hear you need to reduce the deficit, because the Fed couldn't reduce interest rates any lower.

On the eve of COVID-19, which was March 2020, we were looking at slow growth. We were looking at if anything increasing our deficit in order to expand the economy, but then came COVID-19.

David D. Stewart: Let's turn to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. We actually had you on the podcast in March 2020, just at the beginning of the pandemic, right at the time our offices shut down. You did say you saw a recession coming. How did your prediction play out?

Martin A. Sullivan: Well, I don't remember the timing on my prediction, but what I would like to emphasize is that the economic events that took place in March 2020 were absolutely unprecedented. The reduction in jobs was 25 million people were out of work. The reduction in GDP was enormous. We had in 2007 to 2009 what we called, "The Great Recession." That was one-third the size of the job losses and the reduction in GDP that you saw during COVID-19.

It's just absolutely amazing, unprecedented, and it should not be swept under the rug that the economic effects of COVID-19 were just like nothing we'd ever seen before. But then we had the government response, which was also like nothing we've ever seen before.

Concept of economic recession during the coronavirus crisis, downtrend stock and man with mask ... [+] background

David D. Stewart: Let's look at that. We saw Congress react in a big way with the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act in April 2020. Looking back now, what was the impact of that historical package on the economy?

Martin A. Sullivan: It's actually a very interesting story, or as interesting as economics can be. When you go to economic school, they teach you government is usually so slow about responding to recessions. There's a recession in March and maybe by December they'll get around to doing something.

Not this time. Congress and the president acted with remarkable swiftness with the CARES Act and other associated legislation, which greatly increased transfer payments and support to businesses very, very quickly. You have to give the government very, very high marks for the rapidity of their response to the recession.

David D. Stewart: Looking toward the end of that year, it seemed the economy was bouncing back. Could you tell us about how things looked at that point? Were we seeing inflation then?

Martin A. Sullivan: Right. Let's just remember it was March 2020 when COVID-19 hit and we all left our offices and so forth. During 2020, Congress passed a series of four or five laws pumping lots of money into the economy. The snapback was almost as remarkable as the decline.

The 25 million jobs that were lost almost entirely came back. Employment levels were still low, but most of that deficit in employment snapped back. Same thing with GDP; it snapped back at an incredibly high rate.

Immediately following the monumental amazing shock to the economy, the economy snapped back most of the way. The stock market, which declined by 30 percent with COVID-19, by November 4, 2020, had entirely bounced back. Before COVID-19, the Dow was at about 30,000 high, and it's about 34,000 now.

We have housing prices up, we have stock market up, we have the economy almost back to normal. There was an amazing comeback right after the initial shock.

David D. Stewart: Were there signs of inflation at that point?

Martin A. Sullivan: Very interesting. I was making a presentation to a class at Georgetown, and I was surprised to see that there was no significant increase in inflation in 2020. It didn't happen. It didn't really start to kick in until a little later.

Here's the other amazing fact that I stumbled upon. Remember I told you that there was this enormous decline in employment and this enormous decline in GDP, which is the way we normally measure the economy? But you know what didn't decline was personal income.

What is personal income? Personal income is money that people have, disposable income that households have. During the great contraction caused by the pandemic, personal income actually went up. It was just so stunning to me that could possibly be true. The reason it was true was that personal income has two components.

One is market income. That is wages, what you get from working, and what you might get from dividends and so forth. That went down. But more than compensating for that were government transfer payments. The government pumped into the economy over $650 billion in one quarter.

Certainly not everybody was better off, but if you look at the economy as a whole, the economy was better off because of the incredible injection of this massive amount of money into the economy. This is all happening in 2020, and there's no inflation yet. That's a remarkable turn of events for a nine-month period.

David D. Stewart: All right, so then turning to last March. A new president is in office and we have the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act, which we also had you on the podcast to discuss.

A year ago you said that additional stimulus was needed, but you said that maybe it was too much for the economy. What are your thoughts on that package now looking back a year later?

Martin A. Sullivan: Well, the CARES Act, the 2020 assistance, injected a great amount of stimulus into the economy and increased personal income. So then we get to the beginning of 2021 with the Biden administration, and now the economy's almost recovered, depending on where you look at it, and now we do another massive injection into the economy.

US President Joe Biden speaks about the Child Tax Credit relief payments that are part of the ... [+] American Rescue Plan during an event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, July 15, 2021. - The payments are schedule to start going out to families on July 15, 2021. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

What happens is even though the economy is recovering, we have another massive injection, and there's so much money in the economy that people aren't able to spend it. People are saving it. There was a massive increase in savings that occurred during this period. That is at the beginning of 2021, and this is when inflation started.

The story you can tell is that the first round of relief from the pandemic, the CARES Act and associated legislation, was sort of necessary to get the economy back on its feet and did not create inflationary pressure. But then ARPA gave us another jolt, but it was in the aggregate. Certainly many individuals needed it, but in the aggregate was too much for the economy, and that's what caused inflation.

Before COVID-19, the average U.S. citizen man, woman, and child on average had about $3,000 of cash, let's say in the checking accounts. After these injections from the CARES Act in 2020 and from ARPA in 2021, the average American had $11,000 in their checking account.

Trying to put it in plain human terms, again, this is an average, obviously there's a lot of variation around that average, but if you were walking around saying, "Oh, I need about $3,000 in my account. That's the buffer I like to have." Then all of a sudden you have $11,000, something's going on.

The story that you can tell, which makes sense when you look at all of the data, is that people have more money than they can spend on average, and that's what's driving inflation up. In an incredible development, the amount of checkable deposits held by households in the United States in a 12-month period went from $1 trillion to $3 trillion after being at $1 trillion consistently for a decade. Just an enormous increase.

This pent-up savings is creating this inflationary pressure, and until those savings are dissipated, we probably will continue to have the inflationary pressure. What could cause that to dissipate is that people need to be able to spend that money.

I use the example, I was cleaning my stove a few months ago, and somehow, when I turned on the automatic cleaning button, basically my stove blew up. Now I don't have a stove. I want to order a new stove, but I can't get one. I can't even see one until next April. There's just pent-up demand. The stove manufacturers are not going to reduce their prices in that circumstance.

That's a case study, but the data reflects that throughout the economy. People have a lot of spending power, they don't have any place to spend it, and that's driving up prices.

Again, I want to stress, obviously low-income families may not be in this situation, where they need every dollar they have and they're spending every dollar that they have because they're living hand to mouth. But in general, there is this pent-up inflationary demand.

David D. Stewart: Is the microchip shortage that we heard a lot about part of this problem?

Workers assemble laptop computer on the assembly line at Hasee Computer company's manufacturing ... [+] center in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. Hasee Computer Company is ranked third among China's domestic PC makers and has ambitious plans of being number one after a period of rapid expansion since shifting in to PC manufacturing after years of being a components producer for several large global PC makers. Hasee is just one of many companies in the Pearl River Delta that is attempting to shift in to higher end production, which in turn is rejuvenating the region as not just a sweat shop for export, but a high tech manufacturing center. (Photo by Ryan Pyle/Corbis via Getty Images)

Martin A. Sullivan: Yeah. All of the shortages the microchip, gasoline it all contributes.

What we have going on with the pandemic is both the supply side and the demand side problem. The demand side is we have too much demand. That's what I was talking about, where the average person went from $3,000 to $11,000 in their bank account, and that is a lot of extra demand in the economy.

Then we have supply chain shortages, like the chips, which actually predated the pandemic, that's also going to contribute to inflation. You have both of those things going on at the same time.

The way out of this is either to reduce demand, so let's have a big tax increase. No, I'm just kidding. Obviously that's not going to happen.

The way out of this is for the supply chains to get fixed to allow me to buy my oven, to get those computer chips to the car manufacturers in Detroit. Until folks are able to use up that extraordinary excess amount of saving that's been built up, we'll probably continue to have inflationary pressures.

David D. Stewart: Now, you jokingly mentioned a tax solution to this problem, but are there policy measures that can be implemented that would reduce these inflationary pressures? Maybe not confiscating $8,000 out of everybody's bank account in order to get us back to the original number, but what sort of policy measures can be taken to get us out of this inflationary cycle?

Martin A. Sullivan: Of course, you just turn on your business news station, you will immediately hear about the Fed going to increase interest rates, and that will almost certainly happen throughout the remainder of this year. That will somewhat reduce demand because for folks who are buying on credit, the interest rate will be lower. Folks who are buying houses, the interest rate will be lower. Also, the stock market wealth will go down and people will have less money to spend.

But the other way, and I think the more important but politically impossible way, is to actually increase taxes that would reduce consumption, or absorb that savings.

So, as you say, again, massively oversimplifying in the aggregate, but if we confiscated that $8,000 in everybody's bank account, then that would probably eliminate the inflationary pressure that we're now experiencing. But again, that's just not going to happen.

David D. Stewart: Right. What are you expecting out of the next few years for inflation? I know at the beginning we were told this is transient. This is not going to last very long. Are we looking at a period of 7-percent-plus inflation for a few years, or is this something that will come back to normal levels?

Martin A. Sullivan: Let's break it into two parts. The first thing I would say is that over time, that mythical $11,000 I'm talking about will get spent. When I can buy my oven, as the supply chains loosen up and meet people's demand, as restaurants open up again, as people start taking vacations again, that will reduce that inflationary pressure.

I played with some ballpark calculations. In a year or two that will sort of work its way out of the economy. It all depends on how fast the economy can fix the supply side problems. The good news is we don't need any government policies to do that because business wants to figure out how to fix these problems. The free market will fix these problems. As soon as that happens, inflation should settle down.

What we haven't mentioned so far is this problem from the 1970s, my era, when we had what was called a "wage price spiral." Let's say all the inflationary pressure goes away that I was talking about, but people just start getting so used to inflation that when I'm setting my prices at my local store, I'm just always increasing them by 5 percent or 10 percent because I expect that to happen. When I'm negotiating my wages, I'm always negotiating 5 percent or 10 percent more because I just expect that to happen.

What we don't want is inflation to last so long that people have this sort of built into their expectations. That would be a very bad development. There's no reason necessarily to expect that, but that could happen.

David D. Stewart: Well, Marty, this has been fascinating. Thank you for joining me.

Martin A. Sullivan: Hey, thank you for having me.

Read more from the original source:

Inflation, Tax, And The COVID-19 Economy - Forbes

Dear Students, Faculty and Staff,

With Omicron cases continuing to decline, we are seeing an easing of COVID-related restrictions in our county and state. As you know, the State of Washington is lifting its indoor face covering mandate for schools and businesses on Saturday, March 12. As we continue to follow public health guidance, the university likewise has decided to end its indoor masking requirement. However, this change will not go into effect until Monday, March 21. Until then, the universitys current face covering policy must be followed.

Following are more specifics on the coming change to our masking guidelines, as well as updates to our Safe Start Health Check requirement, guidance on gatherings and entry testing.

Face coverings

- For Seattle University, this applies to the Student Health Center, on-campus COVID testing sites and at clinical sites where masking requirements will remain in effect.

- In addition, Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), Disability Services and the Athletic Training Room will continue to require face coverings after March 21.

- Otherwise, no departments or offices should put in place face covering protocols that are more restrictive than the universitys policy.

Members of the SU community are encouraged to evaluate their personal level of risk in determining whether to wear a face covering. As a reminder, community members can access masks through the university, including KN95s, through their designated contact.

Updates to Safe Start Health Check, event guidelines and entry testing for Spring Quarter

Entering a new phase with hope and vigilance

While many welcome the opportunity to remove face coverings and lift other COVID-related guidelines, we all know that COVID is and will continue to be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future. The hope is that by continuing to do our part we can help manage it in a way that does not disrupt our daily lives. Staying up to date on vaccinations is one of the most effective measures we can take to keep the virus and its most serious effects at bay. If you havent done so already, please register your booster. The deadline is April 1.

And while the current numbers are trending in the right direction, the virus has been known to change course and impact our plans. If a new variant emerges, it may require us to pivot and reinstate policies and guidelines in such areas as face coverings, health screenings and events. As has been true for the past two years, we will continue to prioritize the well-being of our campus community, follow the latest public health guidance and make any adjustments that are needed to our COVID response.

Thank you for continuing to care for one another and for all that you do for Seattle University.

Sincerely,

Shane P. Martin, PhD, ProvostCo-Chair, Seattle University Opening Task Force

Timothy P. Leary, PhD, Executive Vice PresidentCo-Chair, Seattle University Opening Task Force

Excerpt from:

COVID 19 Guidance - The Seattle U Newsroom - News, stories and more

KN95, N95, surgical, cloth mask: Which protects best against COVID-19

Not all Face masks are created equal. Heres a breakdown of how each mask works against COVID-19.

Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths are all declining and federal health officials could ease guidance on masks soon, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, speaking at a White House briefing on COVID-19,said her agency was assessing data and "will soon put guidance in place" thatencourages prevention measures while protecting public health and hospitals.

The CDC recommends indoor masking in areas with substantial or high transmission. Thatincludes 97% of U.S. counties, Walensky said.

"We want to give people a break from things like mask wearing when these metrics are better," Walensky said. "And then have the ability to reach for them again should things worsen."

Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, provided an update on the Biden administration program to ship free coronavirus tests to American households.Fifty million orders 200M tests have been shipped, he said.

Also in the news:

Vaccination before contracting the coronavirus appears to diminish the chances of developing symptoms of long COVID among those who get infected, according to six of eight studies examined by the UK's National Security Agency.

A judge blocked Boston Mayor Michelle Wu from imposing a COVID-19 vaccination mandate on certain classes of firefighters and police officers.

The Biden administration is telling Congress that it needs an additional $30 billion to press ahead with the fight against COVID-19, officials told the Associated Press onTuesday.

Today's numbers:The U.S. has recorded more than 78 millionconfirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 928,000 deaths,according toJohns Hopkins University data.Global totals: More than 417million cases and over 5.8million deaths. More than 214million Americans 64.5% are fully vaccinated,according totheCenters for Disease Control and Prevention.

What we're reading:Research during the COVID-19 pandemic has shown Americans are enjoying the health benefits of being outdoors more than ever butoutdoor recreation is still largely dominated by white Americans, and nearly all other races continued to lag, or even stopped getting outdoors during the pandemic in disproportionate numbers.

Keep refreshing this page for the latest news. Want more?Sign up forUSA TODAY's freeCoronavirus Watch newsletterto receive updates directly to your inbox andjoin ourFacebook group.

The U.S. is reporting fewer than 1 million new coronavirus infections per week for the first time in two months, with the seven-day average dropping from about 453,000 two weeks ago to about 136,000 Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

The declining numbers in cases, hospitalizations and deaths are prompting more governments, businesses and sports and entertainment venues to start lifting restrictions, allowing for more of asense of normalcy than the country has enjoyed in months.

In Philadelphia, a vaccination requirement for indoor dining was removed Wednesday, and in Seattle proof of vaccination atrestaurants, bars, theaters and gyms will no longer be necessary starting March 1.In Salt Lake City, the arena that's home to the Utah Jazz will stop requiring fans to show proof of vaccination or a negativeCOVID-19 test to attend games, effective Feb. 25.

Several states that had indoor mask mandates, including California and New York, have rescinded them, although local officials and businesses can impose their own requirements.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the U.S. -- where nearly 75% of adults are fully vaccinated -- is "moving in the right direction,'' while still urging caution.

We all share the same goal to get to a point where COVID-19 is no longer disrupting our daily lives, a time when it wont be a constant crisis rather something we can prevent, protect againstand treat, Walensky said.

California removed its mask mandate for indoor public places Wednesday, but two of its three largest cities will still require face coverings.

The state allows local health officials to impose stricter measures, and Los Angeles County -- home to its namesake city -- and Santa Clara County -- where San Jose is located -- have opted to keep masking in place.The city of Palm Springs and Mendocino County are doing likewise.

Statewide, masks are still required in certain settings, such as indoors at K-12 schools, at transportation hubs and inpublic transit.

L.A. County did make an accommodation Wednesday by lifting anoutdoor mask mandate as its rate of coronavirus infections dropped sharply and hospitalizations dwindled by 29% compared to the previous week.

We remain very encouraged by the steady declines that are seen across so many of our metrics, county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrersaid, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Vaccine maker BioNTech unveiled a plan Wednesday for modular manufacturing facilities that could dramaticallyboost production of vaccines and medicines in Africa. The German firm's "BioNTainers" are shipping containers equippedwith state-of-the-art production technology. Eachfacility would require about a dozen containers and could provideup to 50 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine each year, the companysaid. Other medicines and vaccines also could be produced at the sites.

The company said the containers could be available later this year,although it could take another year for mass production to be fully underway.BioNTech has drawn criticismfor refusing to suspendpatentsso other manufacturers could make the vaccine more widely available in developing nations.

Today represents a momentous day for Mother Africa," said Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo. "Another step in the process towards self-reliance has been taken."

Ottawa Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said new emergency measures could result in protest "no-go" zones around monuments and legislatures to help quell three weeks of chaos in Canada's capital city.Police Chief Peter Sloly was ousted amid criticism overhis handling of trucker-inspired protests against COVID-19 measures.

The protests have spread across much of Canada. The Ambassador Bridge recently reopened after a blockade halted traffic between Detroit and Ontario for a week. But this week several protestersarrested in connection with a blockade at the bordercrossing between Coutts, Alberta, and Montana face charges of conspiracy to commit murder against Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers.

Even as the latest COVID surge recedes, doctors and patientadvocates warn that the virus could leave a new epidemic in its wake: millions more cases of the rare, mysterious condition known aschronic fatigue syndrome.

Researchers increasingly see parallels between chronic fatigue syndrome, which affects 1.5 million Americans, andlong COVID, the barrage of symptoms including exhaustion, persistent pain and cognitive impairment that can lingerfor months in some patients.

The connection between the two disorders is still being studied, but some research suggests the pandemic could more than triple the prevalence of chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME.

Whileresearchinto COVID's long-term impact is still in its infancy, there's evidence thatone in 10 infections may develop symptoms of chronic fatigue. That would equate to about 7.7 million cases in the U.S.

Gene Myers, NewJersey.com

Starting Thursday,vaccinated guests willno longer need to mask upindoorsacross most ofWalt Disney WorldandDisneyland. Face coveringswill still be required for all guests ages 2 and olderon enclosed Disney transportation at both resorts, such asshuttles and monorails.

We expect guests who are not fully vaccinated to continue wearing face coverings in all indoor locations, including indoor attractions and theaters, Disney World's website said. However, guests arenot required to provide proof of vaccination.

There will be no vaccination, testing or masking requirements at theCoachellaValley Music and Arts Festival and Stagecoach Country Music Festival when theyreturnin April to theEmpire Polo Clubin Indio, California, organizers announced.

Britt Kennerly and Eve Chen

The New Jersey state Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal by the state's largest police union to block Gov. Phil Murphy's vaccine mandate for workers in high-risk settings, meaningmore than 11,000 county and state corrections officers have until Wednesday to show proof of vaccination or risk losing their jobs.

Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote that the New Jersey Policemen's Benevolent Associationdid not deserve a stay pending appeal because it had not shown that its claimrested on settled law orhad a reasonable probability of success, or that relief was consistent with the public interest, among other things.

The high court's ruling extinguishesthe union's hope that a judge would step in toblock Murphy's mandate, which requires that workers in high-risk environments, including hospitals and jails, get the COVID-19 vaccine or face discipline.

Steve Janoski, NorthJersey.com

Instructional aidesmay continue to substitute teachin multiple classrooms once Iowa's emergency pandemic proclamation expires this week after lawmakers met Tuesday to approve an emergency rules change.Iowa public schools were worried that the expiration ofGov. Kim Reynolds' public health disaster proclamationthis week would worsen their staffing shortages since the proclamation relaxed the rules for some school staffing, like allowing the aidesknown as paraeducators to substitute teach in multiple classrooms.

The rule allows paraeducators with substitute teaching authorizations to work as a substitute in multiple classrooms with emergency permission if the school shows a documented need for them to fill that role. Normally, paraeducators' work involves assisting teachers in the classroom, and theyare only authorized to substitute teach if they are assigned to a specific special education classroom.

Stephen Gruber-Miller, Des Moines Register

Contributing: The Associated Press

Here is the original post:

CDC chief wants to 'give people a break' from mask wearing once transmission rates improve: COVID-19 updates - USA TODAY

Testing for the coronavirus in India last month.Credit...Channi Anand/Associated Press

The Omicron surge seems to be slowing in much of the world, but a subvariant that scientists believe is even more contagious is on the rise, and a decline in testing has muddled the global picture, the World Health Organization said.

New cases worldwide dropped 19 percent from Feb. 7 to Feb. 13, compared with the week before, according to the agency.

The W.H.O. also said that the subvariant of Omicron, BA.2, appeared to be steadily increasing in prevalence and that BA.2 had now become dominant in several Asian countries, including China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines. Denmark was the first nation to report that BA.2 had overtaken BA.1, the version of Omicron that first swept through the world.

Scientists have said there is no evidence that BA.2 is more lethal than BA.1, though BA.2 could slow Omicrons decline. So far, vaccines appear to be just as effective against BA.2 as they are against other forms of Omicron.

The Omicron wave has yet to crest in what the agency calls the Western Pacific region, which includes Oceania, the Pacific islands and East Asian countries like China and South Korea that recently celebrated the Lunar New Year, a holiday period that typically involves large family gatherings. Cases in the region rose 19 percent last week, the W.H.O. reported.

In the Pacific, two island nations that had no confirmed cases until recently are now grappling with the arrival of the virus. In Tonga, an outbreak began after ships brought aid to help the country recover from a volcanic eruption and tsunami in January. And the Cook Islands reported its first case last week.

The W.H.O. said caseloads were falling in the other regions. But cases are still rising in parts of Europe, including in Slovakia, Latvia and Belarus. And in Russia, new cases have increased by 79 percent over the past two weeks, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

On Wednesday, Maria Van Kerkhove, the W.H.O.s Covid-19 technical lead, cautioned that a drop in testing rates around the world has meant the reported global case numbers might not reflect the true spread of the virus.

We need to be careful about interpreting too much this downward trend, she said. She said the bigger concern was the increase in reported deaths from Covid-19 for the sixth week in a row.

See the article here:

Covid Live Updates: Mask Mandates, Reopening News and More - The New York Times