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France, Spain, Austria and Belgium are seeing a second wave of the coronavirus.

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British prime minister Boris Johnson warns that the second wave of the pandemic is here. More countries face quarantine measures for travelers returning to England. 

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Face masks become mandatory in over 100 congested areas of Paris, and in other French cities. A fine of 135 euros for not wearing a mask. 2288 new infections reported for France in last 24 hours for August 9. 

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Hospitals in Europe are filling up quickly in the second wave of coronavirus. Coronavirus patients had to be transferred by helicopter to Germany from the Netherlands because of overburdened Dutch intensive care units. National Guard troops were flown in from the U.S. to the Czech Republic to help. In France as cases approach cumulative 1 million about 2000 patients are admitted to hospital for coronavirus every day on October 29. At some point French hospitals could be overwhelmed this winter, and doctors having to choose which patients to save, says president Macron. In the Czech Republic a collapse of the health system is expected by mid-November says the prime minister. No one expected this to be this severe, he says.  About 40,000 patients are hospitalized for coronavirus in the U.S. During the last week the case are increasing by over 40% in the U.S. and increase in hospitalizations are expected. Recovery rate is improving from the first wave. At NYU Langone hospital system in New York with 5000 coronavirus patients hospitalized recovery rate is improving from 25% in March to 7% in October. Better handling of cases and knowledge gained by doctors is a big part of this. ...

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A coronavirus map of the U.S. in November shows darkened areas in the midwest and the mountain states as the most hard hit regions. The U.S., India, Brazil, Russia and France, populous countries in Asia and Europe, and Americas, lead the way in the number of daily cases in the second wave as they did in the first wave of the coronavirus.

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Young people in Europe are one of the hardest hit groups in this pandemic. They are overrepresented in sectors such as travel, retail and tourism. where loss of jobs is the highest, particularly now that a second wave of coronavirus is hitting Europe. The lockdowns in Europe shut down many of these same sectors again.

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How global travel and ultra cheap flights in Europe have seeded this pandemic is the subject of this report in NYT. The Austrian resort here is one of many such ski resorts. An earlier report showed how 21 million tourists visiting beach resorts in Croatia on the Adriatic are spreading the coronavirus in a second wave in Europe in September. From Europe it is a short step to the U.S. and other countries. See in Links.

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A quick look at how countries are doing on October 29 as the second wave begins with 14 day trend, daily cases of coronavirus, and the cases per 100,000 population. The trend is worsening in Europe and in the U.S., Latin America, stable or better in India and in other parts of Asia.

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So far Italy has resisted the second wave of the coronavirus by adhering to the strict social distancing and mask guidelines better than other parts of Europe. After the traumatic experience in March and April Italians especially in the north near Milan are strictly following the guidelines. The daily number of new infections is at 1851 on October 1, and fatality rate is low.

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With the gradual decline in the second wave of the coronavirus in India, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman highlighted some of the progress and the plan ahead -to achieve macroeconomic stability in the face of coronavirus spending and needs, the progress in GST for formalizing the economy and getting tax compliance, the infrastructure investment and forward looking timely completion of projects, increasing foreign direct investment flows into the economy, and making India an important part of the renewal of supply chains of America and Europe. The highest ever GST, Goods and Services Tax collection, helps build the framework for revenue to support investment in new infrastructure. Ease of doing business in India was a key goal to increase new inflows of foreign investment. Coordination of domestic and foreign trade and investment policy was part of the effort to build the environment for partnering with US and European Union countries, and UK, so that implementation in supply chain renewal could take place. ...

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Genome sequencing is a way to tell if there are mutations in the virus. This is a very important part of the battle against the virus. About half of the genome sequencing in the world is done in Britain. 
Lessons learned are pointed out by the Science Editor of The Times.

During the first wave with the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China, focus shifted to selected countries without much attention to Europe next door to Britain. Much of the mutated virus strains from Europe, from Italy, Spain and other countries cause the epidemic to get out of control. This is being repeated in the second wave.

When the epidemic surged in Kent British health authorites conducted genome sequencing for the virus to find out that there was a variant, a mutation of the virus that was causing a surge. This has helped Britain prepare to tackle the pandemic as it changes with new strains of the virus.

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German chancellor Merkel imposes a partial lockdown in Germany starting November 2. This is followed by an announcement of a lockdown across France by president Macron. On October 28 German daily cases went above 14,000. Only 25% of intensive care beds are now available, creating a very serious situation. Meetings in public will be restricted to just two households of up to 10 people total. No crowds at sports events. Restaurants and bars will close except for take away. Schools and kindergartens will remain open. Church services and protests will be allowed to continue. Shops will remain open with one customer for every 10 square meters or 108 square feet. Merkel called it a "very serious situation," and said "we must act now to avoid an acute national health emergency." She told Germans the number of people in intensive care units has doubled in last 10 days, and in many areas it was no longer possible to track and trace infection chains. In 75% of the cases the source of infection is unknown. People are encouraged to work from home and companies encouraged to make this happen. Companies with less than 50 employees and self-employed will get support from the government with  about 75%% of the income. Companies, institutions and clubs will also get federal aid. About $10 billion euros are set aside for this aid. ...

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How do you setup a vaccine business. Consider Mr. Adar Poonavalla in the city of Pune in India. His company Serum Institute of India, remains family owned. Founded in 1966 by Cyrus Poonavalla, it produces billions of doses of vaccines for measles, polio and other diseases. It is expected to be one of the key sources of vaccines because of its expertise and the stocks of vials and other supplies that it has in stock for the next 2 years of vaccine production. It is working on a separate facility for coronavirus production that could turn out 800 million doses of vaccine at a price of about $13 a dose over 2 years. Serum Institute is working with 3 companies that are doing the research on the vaccine for coronavirus in the U.S. and Europe, and will play a key role in the manufacturing of vaccines. To respond to the question how do you setup a company to produce vaccines for the people of the world. This is what Mr. Poonavalla says- he will only work with ethical long term funds and sovereign funds because he does not want to be in the situation where he has to charge high prices to give them returns. Unlike most countries in the world, India is unique in making certain that most of the basic pharmaceutical drugs are available to over a billion people at a low cost. Serum's goal is low cost quality vaccine production so that over a billion people in Asia can be "protected from the birth onwards." As the U.S. and Europe and large parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America, face the second vaccine phase of the coronavirus response following difficulties in PPE, Ventilators, and Masks in the first phase, they can have confidence because of companies such as Serum and the research centers in U.S. and Europe like the one at Oxford University. ...

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The second lockdown in France that begins October 29 for 4 weeks is very different from the first. It incorporates many of the lessons learned during the first lockdown.  The construction industry will remain open after this made a large dent in the French economy during the first lockdown. Schools K-12 will now remain open, with children required to wear masks at age six, and stricter rules for masks and visiting parents. The universities will remain open with classes online, but physically closed. Buses metro and other transport will remain open. Churches will remain open but be limited to very small gatherings. Parks forests, gardens and beaches will remain open this time but one has to live within 1 kilometre to access them and limited to 1 hour. People are prohibited from travelling outside the region in which they are registered. People can exercize for 1 hour within 1 kilometre of their home. All are required to carry a signed form for any type of activity, including shopping, work, accessing essential services, or for their one hour exercize. Not having the signed form would lead to a fine of 135 euros. Because bars, restaurants will be closed people in these hard hit industries will get 100% of their pay from the government. In other industries companies will contribute 15% and the government 85% so that these people are covered. ...

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The chaotic nature of the national lockdown announcement in Britain with Health Secretary Hancock pushing for a national lockdown and prime minister Boris Johnson's hesitation for 2 weeks. The Chief Medical Officer Mr. Chris Whitty told a top level meeting of ministers that the NHS could be overwhelmed by the first week of December and warned of 4000 deaths a day, if a lockdown did not take place. Tory backbenchers continued to resist but the prime minister had no other option but to call for the lockdown. The fact that Germany and France decided on a national lockdown gives Boris Johnson the cover he needed in his own party.

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This report in The Times shows that from April to October the Tory red wall seats in the north of England have been hit hard by the coronavirus, much harder than the south of England. The infection rates in October are about three or four times in the north of England. The second lockdown came earlier in the north, in Liverpool Greater Manchester and Yorkshire. The result is that instead of levelling up the great disparities in wealth and income that are seen between the south, London and the north of England the gap is widening under the impact of coronavirus. Deindustrialization in the north after their prominent role in Britain's industrial revolution was followed by the same type of decline seen in parts of the American midwestern states. Imports from China and globalization, hit these areas in a sort of second wave, just as America was hit first by the wave of Japanese imports, followed by an even bigger wave of imports from China and complete loss of manufacturing. With it the loss of well paying jobs for workers in manufacturing and the decline of industrial cities. Influx of cheap labor from other parts of the European Union also affected the north. The result is that the popularity of Boris Johnson and the Conservatives with 58% approval rating in April in the north of England is replaced by a rating of about 31% in October 2020. The 40 Tory MP's in the Northern Research Group expressed their serious concern to the prime minister. ...

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On October 28 France reported 36,000 daily coronavirus cases. French president Macron announced a new lockdown starting October 30 that last till December 1.  Under this second lockdown people can leave home only to go to work, to go to school, to give assistance to loved ones, for essential shopping and for 1 hour of physical exercize. People will have to show documentation when leaving home. Travel between regions is banned. Bars and restaurants and nonessential businesses will be closed. Universities and higher education will be done online. Schools will remain open, essential businesses will remain open. Most public services will be open. Factories, farms and construction sites can continue to operate. There will be extensive economic support for business and people. Small businesses will have access to 10,000 euros per month of assistance, employees get short term work assistance, and people having trouble with rent receive assistance. About half of intensive care beds are now taken in France. And Macron said transferring patients to other regions will not be possible as the virus is everywhere. ...

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Summer tourism is helping support a second wave of the pandemic. This report says Croatia is a case study on how the opening of tourism can trigger a second wave. Because Croatia depends on tourism and Croatia had controlled coronavirus cases in May, the government decided to open its coastline areas to tourists from Europe. These tourists returned home with the infection and spread the virus. Clubs and bars were allowed to reopen for the summer season after the lockdown in April along the Adriatic coast attracting visitors. With 500 miles of coastline and Mediterranean climate, ancient towns and affordable stay, Croatia is crowded with tourists. In 2019 21 million visitors came here according to the Croatia Tourist Board. On Italian visitor from Parma cited here says she found crowded parties and bustling bars and restaurants where hardly anybody kept social distancing and wore masks. People in shops and bars she says told people they did not need to wear masks. The governments in Europe were keen on making up for the economic costs of the pandemic and opened the internal borders of the European Union in June. The opening of resorts in the sunbelt of Europe in Spain and Portugal has led to the spike in cases in Madrid and other cities in Spain. The same is happening in France. But vigilance dropped especially in Croatia where little or no restrictions were visible. Not only were bars allowed to open but the social distancing rules and mask rules were never practiced. Some Croatians call it incomprehensible. It has led to the spike in Germany, Czech Republic and Austria. The Koch Institute says 12% of all new German cases are traceable to Croatia. It is now a fact that international travel is a way the coronavirus accelerates. Governments in France, Germany, and the UK which are not especially dependent on tourism have the option to encourage people to stay in their home countries and remove this cause of acceleration while keeping shops and offices open so that business and jobs are preserved. For people hurt by lack of employment in the hospitality industry and others with lost wages from being in an occupation that acts to accelerate the virus it is a better option to offer financial assistance than to end up closing offices and shops in another partial lockdown. Opening bars helped accelerate the pandemic in California after the lockdown with steeply rising numbers of new cases. Educating the public to the extent that it should be about the dangers is also missing.    ...

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The Editorial Board of the WSJ questions the lack of debate on the frequent lockdowns and the quashing by public health officials Fauci and Collins of an alternative point of view on lockdowns. That point of view by epidemiologists at three universities Oxford, Harvard and Stanford favored a policy of "focused protection" of high risk populations instead of snap response of blanket lockdowns. It cites statement by Dr. Fauci that people who criticize him are "really criticizing science, because I represent science. That's dangerous." And questions the idea that one man can by himself represent science, saying scientific debate over pandemic policy was and still is in the public interest. In some ways the Biden administration has adopted some of these ideas on a new pandemic policy that does respond with focused and selective lockdowns. Today shuttered businesses, lost livelihoods, untreated illnesses, mental illness, isolation effects are all taken into account in decisions throughout the US, and other countries in Europe, in Asia and the rest of the world. Some of the emails mentioned in this WSJ editorial were in October 2020 at the height of the first wave and second waves before the vaccination drive in 2021, when the fear of the coronavirus was the dominant response. Yet a spirited public scientific debate could have prevented some of the rancor and division that has led to high vaccine resistance in the US with fully vaccinated stalling at about 62% of the American population at the beginning of 2022. It did'nt have to be that way. America could have done a lot better with sincere scientific and public debate. ...

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On the first day of the new vaccine policy on June 21, 2021, India has vaccinated 6.9 million people. India has now vaccinated 287 million people out of a population of 1.2 billion. This is a race against time as new variants caused the second wave of coronavirus in April and May of 2021 with cases peaking at over 300,000 a day.  The shortcoming of the old vaccine policy are being corrected. The entire vaccine supply process and the vaccination drive is now being handled by the federal government. Earlier during the second wave vaccine supply and the vaccination drives were under an arrangement with no clear overall responsibility. States shared responsibility with the federal government and target vaccination goals were missed, vaccine supplies were inadequate.  A similar arrangement in Germany failed and Germany's vaccination supplies were inadequate and vaccination drive stalled. This caused immense frustration in Germany in April-May 2021. Germany's troubled history before World War II led to a reliance on decentralized actions, and state governments imposed different rules in a relatively small country compared to India. This was corrected with the federal government taking on the entire responsibility for the vaccine supply and vaccination drive leading to good results today in vaccines. With India's huge population and political process of different state governments, some lacking experience in administration for a complex process, and others failing to coordinate well with the federal government, the lack of overall responsibility at the federal government posed serious risks of missing targets for vaccines and letting the coronavirus wreck the economy and public confidence. Complex negotiations with other governments in Europe and the US for vaccine manufacture in India could only be handled at the federal level. The resources and planning at the federal level were already in place in India for infrastructure and other projects, experience and setting targets in that area at the federal level could now be transferred to this task in vaccines. Somewhere in the range of 8 million vaccines a day need to be reached and sustained from August to December 2021 for India to reach the goal of vaccinated all 1.2 billion people ahead of any further attack from a third or fourth wave, say experts. This is not a choice for the federal government, it is simply something India has got to accomplish to be a healthy nation that can grow with neighbors in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan and build confidence in its Asia-Pacific region. The entire Asia-Pacific region has a lot resting on how well India achieve this goal and moves on to the next phase of assisting its neighbors in the region.  ...

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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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Upward mobility in China was weak and income growth for average workers sluggish during the years before the coronavirus outbreak. In this sense China is similar to the U.S. and Europe where upward mobility gains after the second world war were lost in the last 30 years partly from the loss of manufacturing to China. It is much worse now as the effects of the coronavirus lead to drops of as much as a third in income for ordinary workers. Lower income workers, the vast majority of Chinese numbering hundreds of millions now suffer from lost work or diminished wages. Small businesses cannot afford to pay the salaries paid before and as workers dip into savings or increase borrowing the retail spending is taking a hit. As a result economists see a vicious cycle of lower spending and lower incomes for the hundreds of millions of ordinary workers in construction and smaller businesses. Some small businesses could just close down because of weak demand affecting the economy over the long term. Before the coronavirus China went over three decades from being a Communist country with relatively equal distribution of wealth but lack of growth and technological development to a capitalist country with the structure of state control of the economy from the Communist period. The result is that 1% of the people control 33% of the wealth and the bottom 25% having 1% of the wealth, according to a 2015 Peking University study. China's president Xi Jinping, head of the Communist party, tried to reverse some of these trends by attacking corruption and making changes that began the task of reversing decades of unequal distribution of wealth under state sponsored capitalist growth. Investments were made in rural medical care, infrastructure and basic services. This did not have much impact because much of the pattern of growth over three decades continues including the housing bubble.  With coronavirus the trend is set for even more unequal distribution of wealth as many workers at the bottom half of the population in incomes either lose work, or see drop in incomes as businesses that hire them struggle from shoe factories to other retail business. Reports of informal economy and street markets in Chengdu in western China and bringing this part of the economy back by the state are effort to get people work in other ways. Researchers estimate that China's bottom 60% of household in incomes lost about $200 billion in income in the first half of 2020. In May premier Li Keqiang said 600 million people in China earn only about $140 a month. Many who lost income or jobs do not have support from the government as China lacks a program of comprehensive unemployment insurance as in Europe and the U.S. to help people get over bad times. 300 million migrant workers are particularly vulnerable to loss of income and dipping into savings.   ...

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The NYT provides a good look at the situation in India in September where cases are over 4.5 million, the world's second largest after U.S. During the lockdown in April and May India had successfully stemmed the coronavirus. After reopening in June a lot has changed as can be seen in this look at the steep curve in June, July, August and September. Cases are now at the rate of 95,000 daily and deaths at 1172 daily as of September 9. The deaths are up 16% and cases up 29% over 2 weeks. Maps show the situation in the states with Maharashtra, Andhra, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh showing the highest cases. Maharashtra has about 1 million cases and the two states in the south east Andhra and Tamilnadu have about 1 million combined with Uttar Pradesh at about 250,000 cases. Delhi has about 200,000 cases. So that about half of the 4.5 million cases are in three states in the southeast and the western state where Mumbai (Bombay) is located. The increase was seen after increased testing from 200,000 a day to 1 million a day by the end of August, a steep jump being seen in late August and September. At the end of July the coronavirus recovery rate of 70% in India and 90% in Delhi were the favorable signs, until things changed in August with increased testing and the spread to rural areas. India is doing over 1 million tests daily. On September 3, 1.1 million people were tested, taking the total to 45 million tested throughout India.  As in Europe and America the reopening which is essential for the economy and jobs has resulted in a big jump in cases. The laws for lockdown were carefully obeyed without many of the problems seen in America and Europe, the early complete lockdown was implemented with success, and Indian pharmaceutical companies are some of the largest in the world giving the public wide access to essential medicines and drugs. The postal service has functioned remarkably well during the lockdown for delivery of essentials throughout the country, and earlier action to establish bank accounts for each and every individual in the country, has enabled rural Indians to get through this most difficult period. This has given the government some breathing room as it faces the cases from reopening in a vast country of 1380 million people.   ...

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Latin America has made a huge turnaround through successful vaccination drives. Today more people are vaccinated as a percentage of the population in Latin America at 62% than in the US at 56% or Europe at 60%, according to Our World in Data project at Oxford University. There is little resistance to vaccines in Latin America after successful vaccine campaigns against yellow fever and other diseases. During the first year of the pandemic Latin America had one third of the deaths in the world with 8% of the population. Deaths after vaccination drives have dropped to 8%.  Brazil with 617,000 deaths from coronavirus was second only to the US with 800,000 deaths. Brazil is now back to normal after a successful vaccination drive that has 66% of the population fully vaccinated, and 80% with one dose, some of the highest rates in the world, according to Our World in Data at Oxford University. In Colombia with 50 million population about 50% of people are fully vaccinated. Cases have dropped from 30,000 in June to 2000 a day and deaths from 700 daily that month to 50 a day in December 2021. In Buenos Aires, Argentina's capital, 83% of three million population are fully vaccinated, 14% have received a booster. Buenos Aires city health minister says Argentine society has an affinity for vaccination campaigns. "They rapidly accepted receiving them," he says. Yet from the point of view of new variants emerging there is a different situation in rural areas. In industrial states such as Sao Paulo 78% are fully vaccinated, yet less than 40% are fully vaccinated in poor Amazon state of Roraima.   We make it a point to honor the brave reporters in these countries who provide the reports in the WSJ, as we did earlier for NYT Stephanie Nolan's reports from South Africa and Zambia about frontline workers against Omicron in Africa.  Luciana Magalhaes in Sao Paulo, Jenny Carolina Gonzalez in Bogota, and Sylvina Frydlewsky in Buenos Aires and Kejal Vyas writing this report from San Salvador. ...