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Some of the coverage such as this report in the WSJ looks at the empty stands and the loss of ticket sales, the strict rules that limited movement and the restrictions, seeing the Tokyo Olympics as a strange sporting event. Yet for the billions of viewers on television around the world the Olympics brought some relief and sense of exhilaration from the daily news of the delta variant and the pandemic. In many countries such as India, Britain, Canada, the US and Japan, viewers followed their favored athletes for 17 days. The Japanese government was able to pull this off precisely because they took the safe and tested route of empty stands and televised viewing around the world. This was also a needed precaution because of concern within Japan and fears of spread of the Delta variant.  The restrictions produced results- as 400 infections were confirmed for 190,000 people working at the games. Few clusters emerged from infection in the Olympic village as daily testing and rules for social distancing and hygiene were enforced for 11,000 events. Nine out of ten Japanese watched Japan win 58 gold medals including 9 in judo alone. In terms of grit and resilience, and keeping a glimmer of hope and revival during the pandemic, yet not letting its guard down even for a bit, accepting moments of doubt at times, Japan has shown the way when things are tough.    ...

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The life of Giuseppe Verdi can resonate today as more people look for life outside large cities after the pandemic. Giuseppe Verdi, is shown on his farm in Italian hamlet of Sant'Agata near Parma in northern Italy, in this NYT article. Verdi stuck to his rural roots. He studied music and humanities in Bosseto, and moved back to his farm in Sant'Agata to write some of his famous operas. NYT's Tommasini travels to Verdi's Italian homeland to trace Verdi's roots in the Italian countryside. For most of his life Verdi lived there even as his classical music operas were performed all over European cities. Many of these operas showed the same longing for home as in "Nabucco." On government documents Verdi showed his occupation as "agricultore" or farmer. After ridiculous objections by censors or inept impresarios Verdi would say he was ready to dig up the fields and return to farming in the countryside near Parma.

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It started out as a crazy idea but Paris Olympic organizers began to see the beauty of it. The Olympics on the River Seine itself. Organizers saw the 2018 Youth Olympics done on the streets of Buenos Aires showing that it could be done. And they were upto the challenge with a 1.4 billion e French government project to clean up the river and its rancid dirty water in time for the event in 2024, and to make it swimmable for the first time. Swimmers would dive into the Seine. Click on Original Article to see Les Carpenter's report in The Washington Post and see how the river Seine looks at different times of the day. It would be risky but after the pandemic it was worth trying to bring back the idea that Paris is back. Paris 2024 CEO Thobois, a badminton athlete himself, was upto it. After listening to all the experts, all the plans, the organizers looked at each other at the meeting and said that this is crazy -let's do it anyway.

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The need for institutions that promote cultural contact between the US, Europe and the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America particularly during and after the pandemic. This is something that cannot be outsourced to the private for profit sector. The Guardian calls "bizarre" and "self-sabotaging" the British governments outsourcing of some of the important work of the British Council that was founded in 1934 in an effort to begin the hard work of building relationships with the rest of the world. The Goethe Institut of Germany is also doing this work of building relationships with better funding, better funding, and good leadership, an effort to reverse flow the direction so that the German public gets a better understanding of Africa and other developing countries in the world. The reverse flow is a vital and necessary concept because of the ignorance or lack of knowledge in US and Europe of rapidly developing countries in the rest of the world during a period of great technological change and youthful populations. ...

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Bill Gates resigned his seat on Microsoft Board on March 13, 2020. This report in the WSJ looks at the situation at Microsoft in late 2019 when members of the Microsoft Board hired a law firm to conduct an investigation in late 2019 after a Microsoft female engineer's letter. This was a company that Gates founded and which expanded through acquisitions of other smaller companies.  The same day he resigned his seat on Berkshire's Board led by Warren Buffett. Mr. Gates started Microsoft in 1975, was CEO till 2000, and chairman till 2014. He then turned to work with his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   Microsoft has market value of $1.8 trillion, Apple a value of $2.1 trillion.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has assets of $37 billion income of $53 billion, and the personal assets of Bill and Melinda Gates have an estimated value of $130 billion. One of the mistaken assumptions is that any one foundation such as the Bill Gates foundation has the resources, knowledge, technologies, expertise and leadership to tackle problems that confront large countries such as the US, India, or a bloc such as European Union. Imagine some billionaire taking on the role of a Franklin Delano Roosevelt in tackling the Depression or a billionaire tackling the problem India faces today in public health. It is only governments of the US, India and large nations such as the UK that can pull together the resources needed and the cooperation needed between its industrial base companies to achieve goals for public health. This type of effort can pull together resources of trillions of dollars that no one company or billionaire or group of billionaires can put together, and pull together massive resources of engineers, scientists, and other people across hundreds of companies that cannot even be measured. This is one of the lessons of this pandemic because the WHO was left with the job of handling the pandemic and governments of US, France, UK, Germany, India, Russia and leading nations had retreated from their essential role as guardians of the public interest in people's health and left much of the task to others. As they reassume this role this needs to be given a firm and solid footing and lessons learned. ...

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Anders Rasmusen, NATO Secretary General 2009-2014, says it is dangerous for Europe to remain a bystander in the Indo-Pacific. He says the Social Democrats and Greens in Germany, and the Nordic countries including Denmark do not support the policies of the outgoing administration of chancellor Merkel in relations with China. Rasmussen was prime minister of Denmark from 2001-2009. The current prime minister of Denmark, is the leader of the Social Democrats and won the election in 2019 to become prime minister. In the recent German election the Social Democrats were the largest party in parliament and expected to form a government with the Greens party. The situation in the world is changing rapidly in 2020-2021 the years of the coronavirus pandemic. Supply chains are being restructured. The Danish prime minister is on a 3 day visit to India. The Biden administration is committing to spending $3.5 trillion for the renewal of the American economy and for families and workers. America is committed to it role as a leader of the free world, protecting its technologies and strengthening its industries, building respect for workers and families. ...

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Daniel Yergin, expert on international oil markets, says the oil price cap set by the US and EU at $60 and the European prohibition on Russian oil imports after Dec. 5, means the end of the global oil market. That global oil market came into place with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the industrialization of China. In its place comes a partitioned oil market shaped by not only economics and logistics but also by geopolitical strategy, says Yergin. This means Russia no longer sends 4 million barrels a day to Europe. The price cap is a US strategy to prevent a price surge with Russia cutting production to raise prices. It is working. with a slowing world economy, and shipping companies reluctant to take on unknown liabilities from government penalties, the price of Russian oil is now at mid $40's, about 45% below the benchmark price and 33% below the $70 price of oil on which the Russian budget is based, says this report. This has an unintended effect of enabling India to support its modernization drive with oil imports at reasonable prices coming just after a pandemic. ...

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Janet Yellen is nominee to be Treasury secretary in the new administration of Joe Biden. The economic rebound from the pandemic that started in the summer is faltering without additional stimulus and help to businesses and people affected by the pandemic. She is the former chairman of the U.S. central bank the Federal Reserve.  Yellen faces a divided country and likely a divided Congress on many issues facing the country. She says of these divisions and the challenging task she faces of forging compromises- "Right now we live in a country where people look at the same set of facts and come to diametrically opposite conclusions, so that is a big challenge to anyone who takes that job, to build support for your policy outcomes." Yellen believes that the slow recovery after the 2009 financial crisis was because of a lack of a big enough stimulus and policy consensus across parties and with public opinion backing this up. During the pandemic in March 2020 the first stimulus was passed for $3.3 trillion  with support from the Congress and the Trump administration. Today Congress is split on the second stimulus with Democrats pushing for about $2.2 trillion for aid to state and local governments, jobless workers virus testing strategy. Republicans calling for about one third of this or $650 billion to help small businesses and industries such as tourism, retail and airlines. Because  interest rates are near zero much depends on getting an effective stimulus for speedy economic recovery. Conversations between the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, are critical to getting things done. A lot also depends on how Democrats and Republicans can put aside differences for the sake of getting the recovery back in place where it was during the summer. The media has a role to play in not stoking differences in public opinion which was the case close to the election to an unprecedented degree. One critical aspect of American process in getting things done is to bring Congress and the public with an elected president. Without a conciliatory approach and humility few presidents have succeeded as Congress and public opinion is also critical to getting things done. The House changes every 2 years so that even with  majorities- made transient by the founders of the constitution- nothing is certain without getting the other political party on your side. For the sake of the country and the people devastated by the pandemic, the professional class, media and politicians, Congress and the president need to bring a clear and transparent willingness to look at the national interest going forward.  ...

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This is huge- for Germany, for France, and for the European Union. After initial hesitation and a decade of not looking ahead, Germany under Angela Merkel is finally not just looking ahead to its vision for Germany but doing this as a part of the larger European community. And the European Central Bank after its initial lack of community spirit, is paving the way with its own actions for the Europe wide recovery with a significant increase in lending to EU countries.  Germany's finance ministry has agreed to spend 130 billion euros on more than 50 initiatives to promote growth in Germany. No longer is the government looking at the car industry as it did in the past. It is looking beyond to what Merkel calls the "profound upheaval" coming from climate change and digitisation. For Merkel after the changes caused by the pandemic something more had to be done- "We just could'nt introduce a traditional stimulus package. It had to be done with an eye to the future, so that is what we especially emphasized."  This also brings together France's Macron and Germany's Merkel in a combined effort to bring Europe up to face the future with confidence. It is amazing how the pandemic has changed minds in Europe. From the long drawn out period since 2008 when traditional policy ideas and austerity thinking prevailed, to the idea today that this is no way to face the future with confidence for Europe to be back on its own feet, for hope to return. Instead of partnering in austerity with the Dutch and the Swedes, the finance ministry is now looking to France, Italy and Spain, considering the common pain of the core European countries during the pandemic and looking to the future.  Merkel moved to circumvent the traditional Bundestag's refusal to permit debt sharing  across the euro area by producing 500 billion euros of grants for hard hit businesses across the European Union. As Macron says it was a necessary  step- " What is sure is that this 500 billion euros will not be repaid by the beneficiaries.... We are proposing to do real transfers (of money) ... that's a major step." Forecasts from Capital Economics and other forecasters show the European Union's major economies of France, Italy and Germany rebounding quickly in 2021 after the blow in 2020, in a V shaped recovery with growth of close to 6% in France, and higher in Italy because of the bigger hit taken there than Germany. The strong U.S. jobs report with addition of 2.5 million jobs for May shows that the rebound can be sharp upward swing if the policy, will and community spirit is summoned up by leaders and people, no matter what happened in the past decade. It is also based on having the right spirit that knows about investing where it really counts for the people - in infrastructure, health, public services, and avoiding the misallocation of resources and spending that happened before. ...

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There is a sense from Remainers and Brexiters in the Conservatives and in Labour that Brexit is "acting as a drag on UK growth and limiting its potential" after the pandemic and inflation. Senior members of both parties are meeting in Oxfordshire including David Lamy of Labour and Michael Gove of the Conservatives, and the heads of banks and large business. Gove and Boris Johnson led the campaign for Brexit, and Gove is now interested in ensuring Brexit is not viewed as a failure in the long term. The Office of Budget. Responsibility says Brexit will reduce Britain's per capita GDP  by 4%, over the 15 years from 2016. Labour sees it as a threat to any future Labour government to leave unaddressed the relations with the European Union. In a bipartisan effort what sort of conversation to have with the EU so that Britain's economy benefits? President Biden's effort in working with like minded Republicans for America's renewal may be seen by Labour and the Conservatives as reason for doing the same in Britain to ensure European recovery.   ...

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How a deficiency in trust is affecting the US effort to vaccinate its whole population in 2021. The US government took steps early to build vaccine supplies, and was one of the first countries with the UK to begin its vaccination drive. Then after 6 months something went wrong. The deficiency in trust led to about 80 million people many of them young, to avoid getting vaccinated. US president Biden said the country was losing patience with these people. He setup a vaccine mandate and required all employees in private sector in companies with more than 100 employees to get vaccinated. This applied to about two thirds of American workers. All federal government workers were also required to get vaccinated. Yet even after the vaccine mandate the number of vaccinations has not exceeded 900,000 a day. By contrast India was doing 20 million a day. By September 2021 the US had fallen behind all nations in the G-7 in percentage of people vaccinated with one or two doses, behind Italy, France, UK, Germany, Japan, Canada. Trust was also needed, not just vaccine supplies to make a vaccination drive effective. By September the US passed the 675,000 deaths that happened in 1918 pandemic. The deficiency in trust leads one expert to call it breakthrough without followthrough. Other experts see the entrenched social forces that had diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1970's also affecting the vaccination drive. ...

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Elite universities with a third foreign student enrollment displacing Americans, are facing US government funding cuts. This report shows these universities turning to pharmaceutical companies and big tech monopolies that have placed added burdens on cost of living of ordinary Americans, and mental health of children, on the ability for basic literacy by 4th grade. Somewhere the basic goal of the university to educate Americans is being lost. For no more than 5 to 7% of funding these universities are willing to turn to companies that have exacerbated the cost of living crisis or monopolistic behaviours in the Nation, particularly the pharmaceutical companies, showing alevel of misguidedness in management that fails to understand the real interests of ordinary Americans. In pursuing science alone at the expense of everything else and derelict of leadership where it is needed such as cost and value, this behaviour ignores the fact that the greatest dangers to public health come from cutting chemicals in food, in healthy food and exercise habits cultivated in schools, raising the consciousness for healthy living and healthy environments in the Nation. The schools of public health at the Nation's leading universities needed to take a better stand on the dangers of proliferation of  research into viruses, and to single out breakdowns when they happened that are seen by many to have led to the pandemic.  ...

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France has reacted faster to the economic crisis presented by the pandemic. It shielded its economy earlier with government support and household consumption has held up better. Its presidential system led to faster decisions than Germany's decentralized mode leading to some experts saying it should borrow this aspect from France. France also has 70% of its energy from nuclear, Germany by contrast depended too long on Russia and Merkel's decision to completely get out of nuclear and to let overconcentration of supplies of energy from Russia happen was a mistake. Merkel also supported the auto industry without anticipating changes taking place after the Copenhagen Climate conference in 2009 and preparing for the future. The auto industry has taken a hit in Germany as it relies too much on imported EV batteries from China and was slow to make the transition to EV's and hybrids. In fairness to the SPD's Scholz and Greens Habeck considering the economy handed to them by Merkel they had to scramble after the Russian war in Ukraine in the middle of the pandemic. Germany made it through in record 1 year's time to be independent of Russian oil and gas, a huge achievement. Over time Germany will recover as it makes a transition of business away from overconcentration in China, another of Merkel's and German business failures to develop a vision for the future. China's slowdown has affected Germany. Germany has to invest in other parts of the world including in India and Japan to diversify the supply chain. Overall score card would give Habeck and Scholz a lot better score, Merkel and German business leaders of the time a low score, and Frnce and Germany about the same score. France for a steady response, and Germany for the speed in which the oil and gas crisis handled considering also that both countries have a centralized and decentralized system based on their respective history and culture. ...

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Watching Joanna Stern of WSJ interview Sam Altman and Murali Murthi gives the impression that Altman was  moving too quickly and Murthi was saying the right things but lacked the experience and capacity to tackle AI's vast responsibilities. This also stems from the fact that what young Stanford and other tech graduates in their early thirties have done in the last 2 decades ends a chapter in America's tech history. AI is an entirely different technology which requires the involvement of major parts of America's whole technological and scientific community and its society, not just a few individuals. This is also the lesson from the pandemic for virus research where not just the Cambridge, Massachusetts community needed to be involved, but vast parts of America'a health and medicine scientific community and the American public. A million lives were lost in the pandemic in the US alone, and millions all over the world. It is a lesson that should never be forgotten- that technology can get out of control. ...

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Kevin Roose explains the unique structure of Open AI which has 4 board members and is structured as a nonprofit with the overriding goal of safety and making AI beneficial to humanity. Ilya Sutskeyer is chief scientist and member of the board. He says Altman's ouster was necessary to protect OpenAI's mission of making Artificial Intelligence beneficial to humanity. Mr. Altman was asked to join a video meeting of the board on Friday 17th November and was immediately fired. Open AI started in 2015 as a nonprofit and in 2019 setup a capped profit subsidiary in which investors returns are capped in relation to the investment. It keeps the nonprofit in charge and able to fire the CEO of the profit subsidiary and keeps the mission as overarching for both subsidiaries. There are three other members who hold no shares in the company and who are bound to a fiduciary duty to "create safe AI that is broadly beneficial to humanity." Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner are the two other members who are members of the Effective Altruism movement who have raised concerns that AI could lead to the extinction of humanity. Adfam D'Angelo is the other member, he is CEO of Quora a question and answer site. ...

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Early warning about the danger of a small group of individuals deciding the future of an important technology that has dangerous potential if placed in a few hands. With the dangers ever present that the pace of development is outpacing regulatory effort, and the profit enabling a few corporations to stifle regulatory effort in America's flawed democracy. Sam Altman is seen by the board of OpenAI as "hindering the efforts of the board to carry out its responsibilities." The tension of the board with Sam Altman comes from the thinking at the board that the rapid expansion of commercial offerings was not giving time to consider the safety implications of the products rolled out. Watching Joanna Stern of WSJ interview Sam Altman and Murali Murthi gives the impression that Altman was  moving too quickly and Murthi was saying the right things but lacked the experience and capacity to tackle AI's vast responsibilities. This also stems from the fact that what young Stanford and other tech graduates in their early thirties have done in the last 2 decades ends a chapter in America's tech history. AI is an entirely different technology which requires the involvement of major parts of America's whole technological and scientific community and its society, not just a few individuals. This is also the lesson from the pandemic for virus research where not just the Cambridge, Massachusetts community needed to be involved, but vast parts of America'a health and medicine scientific community and the American public. A million lives were lost in the pandemic in the US alone, and millions all over the world. It is a lesson that should never be forgotten- that technology can get out of control. ...

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The Oxford vaccine developed in partnership with Astra Zeneca aims to be the vaccine for the world. The partnership has said it will make 2 billion doses and will provide this without making a profit at about $3 for one dose. Serum Institute of India was the leading supplier of vaccines to the world before the pandemic. Now it is preparing to make 1 billion doses of the Oxford vaccine. Already Astra Zenca has setup agreements for manufacturing  in other countries, with about 24 manufacturing facilities in countries such as Brazil, Japan, and Australia. Arrangements are also made with Russia and Mexico. The Russian partner has capacity to make 1 billion doses of the vaccine. In May the U.S. agreed to buy 300 million doses for $1.6 billion and manufacturing facilities are already being setup in the U.S.  The U.S. and other governments are sharing the risks as Astra Zeneca is hiring other companies to build the manufacturing capacity and working with them to install the new machines and supply the vaccine ingredients. For this the U.S. has Operation Warp Speed a $10 billion vaccine initiative and its organization, including the military. ...

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Spain's Opposition PP party wins 7 million votes compared to Socialists in government winning 6.3 million. PP party won an absolute majority in the Madrid area which means it does not depend on the far right Vox party. Spain's prime minister Pedro Sanchez and Socialist leader calls for a snap general election on July 23.

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The Spanish election produced a better than expected result for the Sanchez government. This report in CSIS shows that after a brief period Spain is returning to dominance of the Party Popular or the Socialist Party, the two governing parties in Spain, with smaller parties doing poorly. Both the PP and the Socialist Party are vying for support of a majority of 176 seats with the help of smaller parties. The VOX did not do as well as expected and a PP VOX party government looks less likely says this report. Even if a government with Partido Popular is formed it will continue most of Spain's foreign policy of supporting NATO and the EU. Mr. Sanchez formed a new government in 2020.

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The Chief Economic Adviser to the Indian Government Mr. Anantha Nageswaran, makes these comments on the economy of India before the presentation of the new Budget for April 2023 to March 2024. The Economic Survey of India states that "India is prepared to grow at its potential once the one-off shocks of the Covid pandemic and of the supply chain recede." He sees the sweeping effects of the reforms across multiple dimensions taken from 2016 to 2022 having a lag effect and now making their impact. This means that potential growth can go up to 7 or 8% with macroeconomic improvement, fiscal improvement, infrastructure efforts, women's employment, and getting rid of LIC (License, Inspect and Compliance) across local, state and central levels. He says the central bank estimate of 6.8% retail inflation for 2022-2023 is outside its target range but yet not high enough to deter private consumption, and no low enough to weaken the inducement to invest. He says slower growth in the world including the US will bring two advantages for India- low oil prices and a better current account deficit situation.  ...

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The EU summit under the presidency of Germany completes its task for setting up the European Recovery Fund and providing nonrepayable aid to countries hardest hit by the pandemic that would otherwise have to spiral their already high debt levels to unsustainable levels or provide little assistance to their suffering public. These countries include Italy, Spain, Greece mostly in southern Europe. Also needing aid are eastern European countries Hungary and Poland. For the first time the European Union is jointly taking on this debt of nonrepayable aid to member states most in need. This is a historic step. The Dutch prime minister, almost ruined the solidarity of Europe with his continual effort to cut the amount of funds and place conditions. The Dutch have favored austerity in Europe but at what cost and at what does it say about the Dutch in Europe. Reports show the Netherlands have gained back billions of dollars that would have gone in taxes to the governments of France, Spain and Italy by setting up tax haven. The Netherlands population 17 million, Sweden population 10 million, Denmark population 7 million, together make up less than half the population of any one of the major countries of Europe, Spain and Portugal, France, Germany, Italy. The combined population of about 350 million people in southern, eastern, and western Europe was arrayed against these 34 million northern countries in the long negotiations, that show solidarity but are also a sign of the changes in Europe as these countries in northern Europe were always guided by their own personal or country interest. Rutte fought hard because of elections he faces a second time against the far right wing parties, for a second time since the 2017 election. It could not get more personal than that. Even Britain if it was still in the European Union is likely under Boris Johnson to have reversed policies of Cameron to support solidarity in Europe and aid for recovery, considering how the government has tackled the pandemic in Britain. Setting conditions would only go part of the way is the reality today. The bigger part of preventing mismanaging of funds comes from the individual experience and hardship of people in southern European nations of Italy, Greece, Spain and other countries after the missteps in the eurozone finances in the last two decades. This provides the necessary dose of internal financial discipline. Not acting quickly in solidarity today would have been a serious mistake for Europe. Still Mr. Rutte and the Dutch have cut the European Recovery Fund's nonrepayable aid by 110 billion euros from the initail target set by Macron and Merkel of 500 billion euros. The agreed target now is $390 billion euros. ...

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The pandemic has affected Brazil, and Peru, Ecuador, the worst in Latin America. Countries where there was a lack of funding for public health and no consensus on how to tackle the crisis such as Brazil have done worse. Brazil has 11 deaths per 100,000 people compared to just 1.0 for Argentina. Chile with a political crisis and months of protests has no consensus in the country. It has done worse with 4 deaths per thousand and 95% of intensive care beds in the country taken, leaving hospitals overburdened and in stressful conditions. 

In Argentina the lockdown has been extended till June 7 and there appears to be a consensus on the government's approach to the crisis. Mexico under president Obrador decided to reopen earlier and now faces more coronavirus cases. Reopening the economy so that people in the informal economy could provide for their families was a priority for president Obrador. 

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Rolls Royce new CEO Mr. Erginbilgic wants an end to pursuing market share. He is renegotiating $2 billion in contracts that could be unprofitable. It had quality issues with its Trent 1000 engine that powered the Boeing Dreamliner ending in paying billions for fixing the product and compensating aircraft makers. Corruption charges were other problems. The pandemic led to companies parking planes and hurt Rolls Royce as enginemaker.  Rolls Royce made the first jet engines the de Haviland Comet, the world's first jetliner plane. Throughout its history it has faced upheavals at regular intervals-cost overruns leading to bankruptcy and government bailout in 1971, and relisting as a private company under Margaret Thatcher that led to a market share competition with GE in the US and more losses. Erginbilgic is the new CEO and says battling for market share days are over. He wants to cut its debt and achieve investment grade ratings to reduce financial costs. Erginbilgic says he really believes the problems of Rolls Royce come from the approach of increasing market share at any cost. Its defense division offers a ray of hope and a new orientation is taking place. ...

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Some local governments in China are making vaccination mandatory. China is setting a goal of getting 64%  of the population fully vaccinated by the end of 2021. In European Union countries mandatory vaccination by country or region is now being put in place to fight new coronavirus variants that spread faster in the population. The reopening of economy, business and tourism is increasing the risk from variants in summer 2021. The mandatory vaccination is a way to increase the percentage of the population that is vaccinated. Getting younger people who lag behind to get vaccinated is important to protect the percentage of the elderly population that is still not vaccinated. There are risks also to the younger population as seen in previous waves of the pandemic. The initial hesitation to make health pass showing a person is vaccinated mandatory was because only a small fraction of the population was vaccinated in Europe. Now that over 50% are vaccinated in most EU countries and UK, that hesitation thinking that it is discriminatory to those people who did not have access to vaccines no longer exists. Ample vaccine supplies and the misinformation spread about vaccines are making action on health pass necessary to protect the overall population. National governments in France, Denmark, Austria, Greece, and local governments in Germany, Portugal and other EU countries such as Ireland, Italy, see the danger from coronavirus variants that spread quickly as too big to take any risks a second time. ...

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In a factory the size of 5 football fields located in Gurnee, Illinois, Abbott Labs makes its BinaxNow Covid-19 home tests. Abbott turned out 1 billion tests in 2021 and at one point had 80% of the market. Along with Pfizer vaccine, BinaxNow Home covid-19 tests are a dominant product during the pandemic. Abbott generated a fifth of its $43 billion in revenue from these home tests. Abbott faced several hurdles along the way. It gained when the US government authorized it to make the test. Yet after vaccination took off by mid 2021 the demand for tests declined and Abbott nearly idled its giant factory in Gurnee. Delta and Omicron variants led to a sudden reversal and surge in demand. Abbott developed its test based on an existing design it used in the US for flu tests, by a company it inherited by acquisition called Binax. To do that test one sends a swab up the nose, add that sample and a liquid mixture to a rectangular paper card, and close the card shut. The liquid then travels up the paper strip, revealing one or two pink lines, one for negative, two for positive. This is done in 15 minutes and the simple design described as a lollipop shape, put Abbott far ahead of competitors. The US FDA authorized Becton Dickinson and Quidel to make the tests before it authorized Abbott, but these rival companies had a poor and complex design. The Trump administration gave Abbott a $760 million contract to buy 150 million tests for distribution to health departments, long termcare facilities, nursing homes, and schools. And by October 2020 Abbott was already making 50 million tests a month. When it comes to distribution Abbott tapped into its pharmacy connections for baby products such as Similac baby formula. This gave it an advantage over Quidel and others who also lacked the manufacturing knowhow for large scale ramp up. The BinaxNow in pharmacies was sold at $24 for a box of two tests, while government paid $5 for one test. Abbott says it makes $ 7 per single consumer test. Yet there was one problem waiting to hit Abbott in 2021- demand dried up as the vaccination campaign took off. In fact the plant manager, Mr. Rodriguez, planned to move to another job inside Abbott as production declined. Then came the Delta variant and he was asked to ramp up production again. With Omicron demand soared. The Biden administration committed $3 billion to help boost test production and asked Kroger and Walmart to sell over the counter tests at cost for 3 months. Abbott had to lure workers from Amazon at $25 an hour for the Gurnee plant expansion. What was learned by the government and Abbott from this experience? The US government now looks for ideas in meeting demand volatility, supply challenges and production needs,. Sustaining production capacity is important for future virus flareups- a new government-industry partnership is required for maintaining test making infrastructure. With government help Abbott plans now to keep the facility at Gurnee operating indefinitely. ...