Teresa Leger Fernandez Beats Valerie Plame in New Mexico House Primary

Ms. Leger Fernandez, a progressive who emphasized her long history in the district, overcame a well-funded challenge from Ms. Plame and defeated several other Democratic rivals.

How the Great Lockdown Saved Lives

By Pragyan Deb, Davide Furceri, Jonathan D. Ostry and Nour Tawk
Jun 3 2020 (IPS)

Since the COVID-19 outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, China in late December 2019, the disease has spread to more than 200 countries and territories. In the absence of a vaccine or effective treatment, governments worldwide have responded by implementing unprecedented containment and mitigation measures—the Great Lockdown. This in turn has resulted in large short-term economic losses, and a decline in global economic activity not seen since the Great Depression. Did it work?

Our analysis, based on a global sample, suggests that containment measures, by reducing mobility, have been very effective in flattening the “pandemic curve.” For example, the stringent containment measures put in place in New Zealand—restrictions on gatherings and public events implemented when cases were in single digits, followed by school and workplace closings as well as stay-at-home orders just a few days later—are likely to have reduced the number of fatalities by over 90 percent relative to a baseline with no containment measures. In other words, the results suggest that, in a country like New Zealand, the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths would have been at least ten times larger than in the absence of stringent containment measures.

Credit: International Monetary Fund

Early intervention and containment measured as the number of days it took a country to implement containment measures after a significant outbreak—public health response time in epidemiology lingo—played a significant role in flattening the curve. Countries such as Vietnam that were faster to put in place containment measures witnessed a reduction in the average number of infections and deaths of 95 and 98 percent respectively. This in turn has laid the foundation for growth in the medium term.

Credit: International Monetary Fund

The effect of containment measures also varied depending on variations in country and social characteristics. The impacts were stronger in countries where colder weather during the outbreak produced higher infection rates, and where the population was older and hence more vulnerable to infection. On the other hand, having a strong health system and lower population density enhanced the effectiveness of containment and mitigation strategies by making them easier to implement and enforce. How civil society responded to de jure restrictions mattered as well. Countries where lockdown measures resulted in less mobility, and therefore more social distancing, saw a greater reduction in the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths.

Credit: International Monetary Fund

Finally, we explored whether the effect of containment varies across types of measure. Many of these measures were introduced simultaneously as part of the country’s response to limit the spread of the virus, making it challenging to identify the most effective measure. Nevertheless, our results suggest that while all measures have contributed to significantly reduce the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, stay-at-home orders appear to have been relatively more effective.

Our empirical estimates provide a reasonable assessment of the causal effect of containment policies on infections and deaths, giving us comfort that the Great Lockdown, despite its enormous short-term economic costs, has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Ultimately, the course of the global health crisis and the fate of the global economy are inseparably intertwined—fighting the pandemic is a necessity for the economy to rebound.

Pragyan Deb is an Economist in the IMF’s Strategy, Policy and Review Department. Davide Furceri is a Deputy Division Chief in the IMF’s Research Department. Jonathan D. Ostry is Deputy Director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department.

The post How the Great Lockdown Saved Lives appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Jane Goodall: humanity is finished if it fails to adapt after Covid-19

Intensive farming was also creating a reservoir of animal diseases that would spill over and hurt human society, said Goodall, one of the world’s foremost experts on chimpanzees and a longtime conservation campaigner, speaking alongside two European commissioners at an online event held by the campaigning group Compassion in World Farming, on Tuesday.

“We have brought this on ourselves because of our absolute disrespect for animals and the environment,” she said. “Our disrespect for wild animals and our disrespect for farmed animals has created this situation where disease can spill over to infect human beings.”

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Primatologist calls for overhaul of food habits to prevent a future pandemic

Humanity will be “finished” if we fail to drastically change our food systems in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis, the prominent naturalist Jane Goodall has warned.

She blamed the emergence of Covid-19 on the over-exploitation of the natural world, which has seen forests cut down, species made extinct and natural habitats destroyed. The coronavirus is thought to have made the jump from animals to humans late last year, possibly originating in a meat market in Wuhan, China.

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‘They turned holy ground into a battleground’: clergy teargassed by Washington police | US news | The Guardian

Episcopal clergy linked to St John’s church in Washington DC were among the peaceful protesters violently swept out of the way by police so that Donald Trump could pose in front of the building on Monday evening, and they have condemned the US president’s behavior.

The Christian leaders were teargassed along with protesters and journalists, some of whom were also shot with rubber bullets and punched by officers as they cleared a path to the church from the nearby White House.

“They turned holy ground into a battleground,” the Rev Gini Gerbasi said.

Source: ‘They turned holy ground into a battleground’: clergy teargassed by Washington police | US news | The Guardian

MPs join 90-minute-long queue to vote to end virtual voting

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Critics say move to physically-distant voting puts vulnerable and BAME politicians at risk

MPs are to return to parliament after a government motion was passed to prevent the resumption of virtual voting, despite what one MP called “absurd” scenes of a kilometre-long conga line of politicians trying to vote.

The 527 MPs snaked through Westminster halls and courtyards for an hour and 23 minutes to vote on the proposal by the Commons leader, Jacob Rees-Mogg, which was carried by 261 votes to 163. It incited a furious reaction from many MPs, including those who are shielding and black and ethnic minority (BAME) politicians.

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